In 2005, when President George W. Bush was trying to re-justify the US-led invasion of Iraq, a new rationale emerged from the feverish minds of his foreign policy advisors. The war in Iraq was really about fighting terrorists on their home ground so to deter them from attacking the home ground of the United States.
More than a decade later, with his wars on ISIS in Iraq and Syria, President Barack Obama has reworked that justification .
Just this week, the Administration boasted that the months-long string of terror attacks that have taken hundreds of lives--from Paris to Brussels to San Bernardino to Orlando to Istanbul to Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia--somehow proves the success of its strategy. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken put it in a nutshell to CNN: "Territory matters a great deal. If you take that away from them, if you take the foundation away, the whole edifice starts to crumble. And that's why we see them lashing out in different places."
But does territory matter a great deal? Or does it just give way to other tactics?
Guerrilla movements like ISIS are at their most vulnerable when they hold territory. In retreat, they fall back on hit and run assaults while folding into the population--in Iraq, that means pulling back into the mass of Sunni Muslims marginalized by the Shiite Muslim-dominated government in Baghdad. In Syria, that would mean continuing the battle of millions of Sunnis against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
The importance of taking territory was the foundation of Bush's argument that having and beating al-Qaeda in Iraq would make the U.S. and the world safer. "There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home," Bush said in 2005.
Obama echoed this notion during his 2016 State of the Union speech, when he asked Congress to authorize a bombing campaign against the Islamic State. "Priority number one is protecting the American people," he said.
The counter-argument suggests that U.S. military activity in the Middle East has nourished terrorists who like nothing better than drawing America into action. Back in 2005, Richard A. Clarke, the former counter-terrorism coordinator, critiqued Bush's policy as being counterproductive. In words that could easily serve as a description of U.S. policy today, he noted:
"The Administration was very big on slogans, which we call bumper stickers. A few words which can stick in your mind or stick on your bumper that serve as a substitute for analysis and a substitute for debate. So during this phase, early in the American invasion and occupation (of Iraq), we were told various things by the President, such as when asked about the threat of terrorists in Iraq, the President famously said, 'Bring them on.'
His administration coined the phrase, 'fly paper strategy' for its involvement in Iraq and its fight against terrorism. The U.S. troops would serve as fly paper -- they would attract terrorists and then kill them much as flypaper does to flies."
My favorite slogan or bumper sticker, which we still hear to this day...'We'd rather fight them over there, than fight them here.' "
Obama's bumper sticker, as delivered in 2014: "If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven."
Obama prioritizes military action because his efforts to find political solutions have failed -- not only in Syria and Iraq but in other terrorist hotbeds (Yemen and Egypt) where disgruntled populations provide fertile ground for radicalism. Secretary of State John Kerry has shuttled around the Middle East, to no avail, trying to persuade various combat sponsors in Syria, including Russia, to work out a political compromise and for the Iraqi government to reach out to the Sunni minority.
That leaves the drone and jet bombing campaigns. Unlike Bush, Obama is hell bent on keeping large numbers of U.S. troops away from the Middle East. Bombing ISIS instead of sending legions of soldiers has the advantage of avoiding U.S. casualties and keeping U.S. activity largely out of the public eye.
That doesn't mean the U.S. is not at war. In December, as reported by the Washington Post, Obama laid out the elements of his plan to eradicate the Islamic State. Airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. Military assistance to anti-ISIS local forces. Block the group's financing. Stop the flow of foreigners flocking to join it. And, of course, better "messaging" and spin-jobs to persuade the public that the U.S. is winning.
What's missing? A bridge between the bombs and a political solution.
Meanwhile, ISIS isn't cooperating. It has upended the idea that when the U.S. hits them 'over there,' they won't hit the U.S. at home. The Islamic State's loose-knit coterie of followers can unpredictably strike at the U.S. as well as friends and allies elsewhere. The idea that you can eliminate terror by bombing alone is under challenge.
Faced with the Islamic State counter-offensive, the Obama Administration suggests there is good news nonetheless. The recent horrific mass terror attacks are simply a desperate reaction by ISIS to obscure its battlefield losses in Iraq and Syria as well as in Libya.
Even if ISIS' bases of operation are wiped out, as Obama promises, you can be sure the U.S. will be fighting 'them' there as well as 'here' for a long. time. As Bush found out, armed action can only go so far.