McCain-Graham, still at it

That troublesome twosome is at it again--or I should say, still at it--demanding that President Obama get cracking on precisely what he's already doing: assembling and leading "a coordinated, multilateral effort" against ISIS.

Such is McCain-Graham's principal harangue in a NYT op-ed, juxtaposed by John Kerry's op-ed, in which he urges "a global coalition using political, humanitarian, economic, law enforcement and intelligence tools to support military force ... led by the United States."

I await my NYT invitation to write a stirring, McCain-Graham-like op-ed demanding that Eric Cantor resign his leadership post and leave Congress.

Still, with the troublesome twosome there's always the selfsame joker played in its selfsame stratagem: "We should embed additional United States special forces and advisers with our partners on the ground," they write, "not to engage in combat, but to help our partners fight ISIS and direct airstrikes against it."

This advice conspicuously poses at least two enormous problems. Until the Obama administration assembles a "coordinated, multilateral effort" against ISIS, we have, other than the peshmerga, virtually no "partners on the ground" to coordinate with. In fact other than the Kurds, there is no competent fighting force on Iraqi ground other than ISIS, which has been the chief beneficiary of McCain-Graham's nearly peerless Middle East advice--that of a 2003 U.S. invasion (which soon created ISIS' forefather, al Qaeda in Iraq) and our subsequent lavishing of military hardware on the utterly worthless Iraqi, ahem, Army (which has since kept ISIS in the militarily armed pink).

The second problem with piling up U.S. special forces and advisors in Iraq and Syria is, like the first, too obvious to much elaborate on. Last night, C-SPAN3 coyly aired a 1963 'U.S. advisors in South Vietnam' training film, which followed the heroic exploits of an all-American Army captain whose unequaled insights into how the locals could defeat the dreaded Vietcong (they being the locals, too) were damned inspiring--and they would have remained damned inspiring had 1963 not been followed by 1964, 1965, and so on. Sixteen thousand U.S. advisers were bivouacking in that sad, corrupt little country in '63. Six years later, more than half a million U.S. combat troops were doing the same.

That's not to say that certain ghastly events could never carry Obama in an additional advisory or even combat-troop direction. Unchecked, ISIS could threaten the entire Levant; yet checking and rolling back ISIS through a fighting regional coalition endowed with minimal U.S. support should be strategically checked off before ever flooding the zone with American personnel.

On President Obama's part, that's just multilateral, coalition-building prudence--which Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham don't possess.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

I hate to point out the obvious but that is exactly what Obama will be doing. He will be putting people, almost certainly from the intelligence community, on the ground in forward positions to direct fire. Without them air power is much reduced in capability. You can use air power in a couple of ways. It can be used to prevent ISIS force concentrations that essentially make further conquests difficult if not impossible. They either stay dispersed or they die. This also allows friendly grounds forces to concentrate and overwhelm ISIS forces. Therein lies the problem. Who will supply those ground forces.

Absent proper fire direction and intelligence you are just as likely to strike the wrong people, usually civilians. And even with extensive intelligence there will be tragic errors. I find it supremely ironic that opposition to the use of drones excites such opposition. They are exactly the weapon, if you are going to use one, that minimizes collateral damage. Their ability to loiter while providing real time observation makes targeting of small groups of individuals much more precise. It cannot tell that a bunch of people firing automatic weapons isn't a wedding celebration. Only eyes on the ground can tell you that. I can pretty well guarantee that Obama will be inserting boots or highly polished shoes on the ground if they aren't already there.

[Peter G]

Wow bad grammar day. That should have been the use of drones excites such opposition.