Counterterrorism strategy an ‘all in’ moment for split-the-difference Obama

Rallying the nation to a war against the Islamic State terrorist group in prime-time Wednesday night, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to project both resolve and reassurance. In some ways that message comports with a president who has an instinct for splitting the difference on matters involving the commitment of military forces. Indeed, the template for the “comprehensive” strategy that Obama laid out Wednesday night for destroying Islamic State militants (also known as ISIS and ISIL) is not the wars of regime change and nation-building waged in Afghanistan and Iraq, but rather the secretive counterterrorism campaigns that the administration has executed in places such as Yemen and Somalia.

… The realization that [IS] was a growing threat to the U.S. homeland caused a fundamental change in his outlook and risk calculation.

Aaron David Miller, U.S. think tank scholar

The strategic shift represents a new “all in” mindset. Indeed, in terms of scope, complexity and visibility, the campaign to dislodge IS from major urban areas and Sunni provinces in Iraq, and attack its leadership and operational centers of gravity in Syria, will prove exponentially more difficult and risky than the hunt for individual terrorists of al-Shabaab in Somalia and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen.

RichardEngel Politics