President Obama‘s address Wednesday on his strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria offered no clear political path for candidates on the ballot in November.
After the president laid out a four-part strategy involving continued airstrikes and ground support to moderate rebels, some vulnerable Democrats were quick to demand congressional authorization.
“The American people must be assured that we are not pursuing another open-ended conflict in the Middle East, and I will not give this president — or any other president — a blank check to begin another land war in Iraq,” said Sen. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat in a tight re-election bid.
But congressional authorization, while it helps to create distance between senators and the president, also carries unique risk.
If Congress votes on military intervention against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, as well as the president’s plan to provide armaments and training to moderate rebels in the region, those ayes and nays could be a future liability for some politicians, much like the Iraq war vote during George W. Bush‘s presidency.
Those votes probably won’t be a major factor in the coming election.
The president offered few details on the estimated timeline of this military operation, except when he cautioned that destroying ISIS “will take time.” But the crisis almost certainly won’t be resolved by the elections in November, which creates great uncertainty for campaigns seeking to address the issue.
As a result, many campaigns responded to the president with a mix of cautious optimism and criticism.
Sen. Kay Hagan, a North Carolina Democrat locked in a tight race with Republican Thom Tillis, who during a debate last week criticized the president for not arming moderate rebels earlier, agreed in a statement with the plan Obama put forth Thursday.
“As long ago as the spring of last year, I pressed the administration to arm and empower moderate Syrian rebels and I am glad that effort will be accelerated,” Hagan said.
Tillis, her opponent, seemed to agree, although he also criticized the president for being slow to act.
“At a minimum, we need to continue air strikes until the president can be assured that ISIS’s own enemies in the region will eliminate them on the ground,” Tillis said. “No option should be left off the table.”
American action against ISIS has only recently become a hot-button political issue in the midterm elections in debates and TV ads. In recent polls, voters have rated foreign policy among the most important issues as well as one in which the president’s job approval has been the lowest.
