Get Used to the War Against ISIS, Says Obama. It’s a ‘Long-Term Campaign’

When it comes to gifts that keep on
giving, we all probably could have done without yet another
extended war in the Middle East. But that’s what we seem to have as
President Obama emerged from a meeting with military officials from
countries that have joined the coalition aganst ISIS to
announce, “this is going to be a long-term campaign. There are
not quick fixes involved.  We’re still at the early
stages.  As with any military effort, there will be days of
progress and there are going to be periods of setback.”

Oh goody. I’d hate to think my son would reach enlistment age
too late to participate in the fun.

How committed that coalition is to an open ended effort to
battling ISIS and “communicating an alternative vision for those
who are currently attracted to the fighting inside Iraq and Syria”
is an open question. Turkey’s
rapid repudiation of White House insistence that the country
had agreed to coalition use of its military bases may be only the
tip of the iceberg. Foreign Policy‘s Gopal Ratnam and John
Hudson describe it as a “kiss
and tell problem.” Like a high school nerd desperate for a
girlfriend, the Obama administration is so eager to interpret the
slightest kindness as a total commitment that it immediately
trumpets its new relationship to the world—and scares its new
friend away. Write Ratnam and Hudson:

The conflicting versions of events from the two allies have one
of two causes. One is political: The White House is eager to show a
war-weary American public that the United States won’t be fighting
alone, but many Middle Eastern countries don’t want to rile up
their own populations by advertising their roles in the coalition.
The other is a more basic and troubling one: that Washington may be
consistently misreading its partners and overestimating just how
committed they are to the fight.

The governments of Georgia and Slovenia also backpedaled from
U.S. announcements of deeper relationships than either country was
willing to acknowledge in world-wide press releases.

Now that the Obama administration is insisting on a long-term
commitment instead of a military quicky, the problem can only get
worse.