A growing number of experts and retired military leaders is warning that U.S. ground troops will have to get into the fight if the Islamic State is to be defeated.
Republican lawmakers are embracing the idea, but it’s something President Obama, backed by most Democrats, refuses to do.
But will the public go for it? Depends on what it means to get “into the fight.”
Though polls show a growing sense that the United States and its allies are losing the conflict against the Islamic State, and that the public is more willing to dispatch ground troops in limited numbers, there’s little interest in yet another “do-over” of a Middle Eastern conflict.
Experts say an expanded U.S. commitment doesn’t mean you’ll see the 1st Armored Division rumbling back into Ramadi like it did in 2006 to clear the city of insurgents. Rather, you’ll more likely see U.S. advisers get closer to the fight, forward air controllers call in airstrikes, and special operations forces stage raids on targets of opportunity. Friday’s attack that killed Islamic State leader Abu Sayyaf in Syria is one example.
“The advisers have to be down with the units that are doing the fighting,” retired Gen. Jack Keane, former Army vice chief of staff told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Keane helped develop the 2007 “surge” that reversed a previous downturn in U.S. fortunes in Iraq.
But even that limited role would require a greater U.S. commitment of 15,000 or more troops on the ground, putting them at risk of being captured or killed. Those two facts make the idea politically unpalatable to the administration and most Democrats.
When asked about the idea, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, responded: “On the ground? U.S.? No.”
The administration insists that the collapse of Iraqi government resistance in Ramadi was just a temporary setback, and that its overall strategy against the Islamic State is sound. For now, White House officials are resisting Republican pressure, led by Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., for a reassessment.
“I don’t think we’re losing,” Obama told the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg in an interview published Thursday. “There’s no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time, primarily because these are not Iraqi security forces that we have trained or reinforced.”
In the interview, Obama suggested the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government bore responsibility for the loss, rather than his strategy, because it was unwilling to make the political accommodation needed to encourage Sunni Arabs to fight the Islamic State. Sunnis are dominant in Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the capital.
“I know that there are some in Republican quarters who have suggested that I’ve overlearned the mistake of Iraq, and that, in fact, just because the 2003 invasion did not go well doesn’t argue that we shouldn’t go back in,” Obama said. “And one lesson that I think is important to draw from what happened is that if the Iraqis themselves are not willing or capable to arrive at the political accommodations necessary to govern, if they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them.”
But critics say the administration’s policy of limiting U.S. military involvement in Iraq to airstrikes and advisers located away from key battlefields is a recipe for defeat. The loss of Ramadi was a direct result of that policy’s limitations, they say.
Further, the administration’s hands-off approach to confronting the Islamic State on the ground in Syria is giving it an effective sanctuary from coalition pressure in Iraq.
Though the U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign has hurt the Islamic State in significant ways, it has not led to a strategic reversal of the Sunni Muslim extremist group’s position, particularly as it expands into new territories, such as Libya.
Training of Syrian rebel forces is still in its infancy, and Iraqi forces on the ground are becoming increasingly reliant on Iranian-supported Shiite militias that have been accused of sectarian cleansing — alienating Sunni Arab populations needed to keep the extremists at bay.
“We are not only failing. We are, in fact, losing this war,” Keane said. “ISIS, despite some setbacks, is on the offense.”
Retired Col. Derek Harvey, a former adviser to the U.S. command in Iraq under then-Gen. David Petraeus, told the Senate Armed Services panel that limits on the U.S. commitment has generated the perception that Washington is not serious about fighting the Islamic State, which has negatively affected the will to fight of Iraqis and other Arab allies in the region.
“They won’t believe that you’re serious unless you put enough skin in the game,” said Harvey, now at the University of South Florida.
