In his most recent weekly column, Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Matthew Continetti argues, “Our ISIS problem is a consequence of the American failure to respond effectively to our almost four-years-old Syrian problem.” Obama’s resolution seeking an authorization of military force and his campaign against the Islamic State, writes Continetti, are pointless without going to the root of the problem—Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the Iranian security apparatus, including IRGC troops and Hezbollah, that have ensured his survival.
“ISIS is less the Syrian dictator’s opponent than his unconventional ally,” writes Continetti, “and as long as Assad remains in power so will the sectarian and political furies that gave rise to ISIS at the beginning of the war. And yet it is impossible to believe that Obama will uproot the weed responsible for some 300,000 dead, millions of refugees, use of WMD, and the Caliphate so long as his strategic goals are détente with Iran and a franchising of Middle East “security” to the mullahs.”
That may be a bit of an understatement. The fact is that the Obama administration has partnered with Tehran and its assets, while acknowledging Iranian interests—in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and now Yemen, where the White House believes that the Houthis are a useful counterterrorism partner against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The way the Obama administration sees it, the United States and Iran have a shared interest in stopping Sunni terrorism. However, as Continetti hinted when he pointed out that ISIS is Assad’s “unconventional ally,” the Iranian resistance bloc has frequently worked with Sunni terrorist organizations—including ISIS’s precursor, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and its then-commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
As Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations explains in Israel HaYom: “In August 2004, there were indications that Zarqawi developed cooperative relations with the Iranians. The London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on August 11, 2004 that the commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Sulaimani, admitted that Zarqawi had spent time in a training camp of the Revolutionary Guards near the Iraqi border. Sulaimani reportedly unveiled that he had provided military assistance to Zarqawi in that period. The same point about Zarqawi’s ties with Iran was made a few months later by Iraq’s interim defense minister.” Further, writes Gold, Zarqawi was “being resupplied from Syria”—Iran’s strategic partner.
But of course, this is all well known to the American intelligence community. Even a president who regularly skips daily intelligence briefings understands that the Islamic Republic plays a variety of hands—Sunni as well as Shia, secular in addition to Islamist—just to walk away a winner. It’s not that Iran’s regional strategy is lost on the White House—the issue is simply that Obama’s priorities compel him to play it differently. His priorities are not strategic but functional, or put another way political.
It’s true that the administration’s key foreign policy goal is to strike an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, a historic reconciliation with an adversarial regime that would win the president international plaudits—and rightly so, if it’s an agreement that really brings the program to a halt. One reason why many fear it won’t be a good deal is because it has become clear over time that the White House does not regard an Iranian bomb as the the major threat coming from the Middle East. As Dore Gold explains in an article written for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, it seems rather that the White House is on the verge of making a bad deal that may allow Iran a nuclear breakout in a very short period of time. From the administration’s perspective, Tehran’s expansionist push isn’t a huge problem either, or else it wouldn’t be teamed up with the Iranians across the region.
It seems that what most concerns Obama is a major terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland. And the president is right to see the prospect of a “Charlie Hebdo”/Hyper Cacher attack in an American city as a nightmare. Western intelligence sources believe that the most likely source of such an attack comes from the foreign cadres now in Syria and Iraq, specifically Islamic State fighters with Western passports. Thus, the campaign against the Islamic State isn’t really a war, but rather a very big counterterrorism operation—with a significant political component as well.
Continetti argues that because Obama is not serious about waging war, Congress should refuse to give him an authorization for military force. “If I were a member of Congress I happily would vote down Obama’s war resolution,” he writes. “There is no cause to assent to the president’s demand for a war authority he does not want, does not need, and probably will not use.” As Continetti points out, Obama already has “the authority to strike granted to him by Article II of the Constitution and the 2001 and 2002 war resolutions.” So why does Obama seek an AUMF? Continetti thinks it’s “a trap, a bone thrown in the direction of the cloakroom to distract from the collapse of America’s position in the Middle East and the approaching deadline for nuclear talks with Iran.”
It’s also meant to box in Republicans on the Hill. Even if they see the issue as clearly as Continetti, it’s likely they can’t afford to take a stand against Obama’s phony war, at the risk of being held accountable in the event there is a major terrorist attack on the homeland. What’s perhaps most noteworthy, as Continetti suggests, is the timing of the resolution, with the March 24 deadline for the P5+1 talks with Iran around the corner. What the White House wants is to change the conversation. If the Republican-controlled Senate and House are most concerned about the administration striking a bad deal with Iran, the White House is playing to block. The AUMF resolution is a messaging campaign, saying the real issue isn’t Iran but the Islamic State and potential terrorist attacks at home. If Republicans aren’t on board, they’re to blame.
The president is of course right to be worried about terrorism at home, and he, the White House, and our intelligence community deserve great credit for keeping Americans safe where we live, work, and play these last six years. And he’s also right that the Islamic State is a dangerous actor that needs to be stamped out. The problem is, he’s not sufficiently serious about it, or Iran. His refusal to see the issue in strategic terms has made American citizens, interests, and allies vulnerable to both the Islamic State and the Islamic Republic.
