Washington's defence-oriented think-tanks have been hard at work churning out justification or otherwise for war, writes Daniel Zubov
With the Congress in recess until December, President Barack Obama will have another two months to battle the so-called Islamic State with little oversight. When the Congress returns, it will be greeted with analysis from think-tanks, ranging from unrealistic to disproven, but ultimately united in a singular desire to remove the Syrian Government which has declined serving the American interest.
On October 14, Mr Obama met 21 military chiefs from Middle East nations in Washington to discuss how to proceed, as the joint air campaign is having little success in stopping the Islamic State from controlling large swaths of territory.
Despite Congress's absence, Washington's defence-oriented think-tanks have remained hard at work churning out justifications for war without end. While there are minor disagreements on whether to send American troops or just employ, arm, train and deploy local troops, everyone in Washington agrees that containing IS is the first step towards regime change in Syria and destabilisation in Iran.
On the Right, Frederick Kagan, a senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and his wife Kimberly Kagan, Head of the Institute for the Study of War, have called for deploying American troops: “After 50 days of obvious failure, it's time to consider an approach that might work: Get American special forces on the ground with the Sunni Arabs themselves.”
Washington's other major conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, similarly declared on October 6 that, “unwillingness to put boots on the ground shows a lack of commitment.”
“There are other challenges specific to Syria,” Heritage's Ted Bromund warns, “the regional politics are so complicated and broken, it will be hard for the United States to make any strategy work, no matter who we support and what we bomb.” Despite this, Mr Bromund insists that failure to send additional American troops for the “long war” ahead will have dangerous consequences.
Frederick Hof, who served as Obama's Special Advisor for Transition in Syria, is now Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he lamented the lack of a strategy for regime change in Syria, noting that “wishing and hoping for political transition negotiations to materialise is not a strategy.”
After reiterating the desire for regime change, he notes that, “Assad is, in fact, the main reason ISIS was able to grow in Syria and sweep to the gates of Baghdad,” who is merely a willing client of Iran's strategy of arming Hezbollah to “menace Israel with rockets and missiles.”
His solutions include grounding Syria's Air Force with a no-fly zone, pushing Turkey to create a buffer zone on their Syrian border, allowing Syrian nationalist opposition parties to assist with military plans, resupplying those nationalist fighters, and encouraging the Syrian National Congress and Interim Government to replace Assad.
The Center for New American Security, traditionally cited by pro-intervention Democrats, published a Syria recommendation on September 9, when Marc lynch stated, “US airstrikes offer no plausible path to political or strategic success.” Instead, he wants Mr Obama to ensure Assad's enemies inside Syria that it is in their interest to join with Assad to fight IS, in the hopes of securing a longer-term cease-fire with the Government, combined with humanitarian and political efforts to “encourage the emergence of a politically legitimate and more effectively unified opposition.”
Another major centrist interventionist think-tank, The Brookings Institution, has supported regime change in Syria since January. More recently, co-director of their Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Michael O'Hanlon, who was an impetus of Democratic support for the 2003 Iraq invasion, suggested that Obama must “convince Iran that Assad is finished.”
Once the members of the Congress do return to debate the merits of Mr Obama's strategy and whether or not to allow a war without end in the Middle East, they will be greeted with analysis from the think tanks which range from unrealistic to disproven, but are united in a desire to remove the Syrian Government that declines serving the American interest.
(The author is associated with Rossiya Segodnya's Center for International Journalism and Research)Courtesy: RIA Novosti