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President Obama's ISIS Plan: How Realistic Is It?

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with members of the National Security Council in the Situation Room of the White House, Sept. 10, 2014.
Pete Souza
/
The White House
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with members of the National Security Council in the Situation Room of the White House hours before his national address, Sept. 10, 2014.

Syria, Russia, and Iran have condemned the plan to lead a broad coalition against the Islamic State President Obama outlined Wednesday night, stating that without a UN resolution U.S. action in Syria would be an act of aggression and in violation of international law.

Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the author of the widely read blog Syria Comment, says that President Obama is in a difficult position domestically and internationally.

“The President is very reluctant to get sucked into Syria, and he’s doing something because these two Americans were beheaded,” Landis says. “You can't let that go by. He has to strike at ISIS. And ISIS was also very brutally rolling over Yazidis and other minorities and it was kicking out the Christians in Mosul. So he had to do something.”

Obama’s four-point plan stresses the need for strategic airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, American military and intelligence support for the Syrian opposition, a redoubling of global counterterrorism efforts, and humanitarian assistance to those displaced and victimized by ISIS.

“This has a potential downside for President Obama because he can't nation-build here,” Landis says. “And he's talked about building a coalition of the Free Syrian Army militias, but they are very fragmented, they're very town-oriented. And to try to organize them as an alternative government is a project that America has failed at in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Pushing back the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria also means more bloodshed and innocent lives lost.

“We're sending F16s into Syria, and we're going to kill a lot of Arabs,” Landis says. “You know there will be collateral damage. There are going to be women and children who are going to be dead, and they're going to YouTube it, and they're going to make propaganda out of it. And we have to be prepared for that.”

In spite of this, Landis says that President Obama’s plan for ISIS is necessary.

“We're into a situation where we have to do something. This is a very brutal group, and it could easily backfire on America if we didn't do anything,” Landis says. “But the options are not good.”

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