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Since 2008, Iraq gradually ceased to be a topic in extemporaneous speaking. This accelerated after the U.S. withdrew its remaining forces from the country in 2011. Optimists thought that Iraq questions would fade much like Vietnam questions did in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in 2014 will cause extempers to talk a great deal about Iraq policy in 2014-2015. The IS was proclaimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Sunni militant group, on June 29 and includes territory in Syria and Iraq. This summer, ISIS continued its advances into Iraqi territory, seizing Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and taking over several Christian towns. The group murdered non-Sunni Muslims, Christians, and those of other religious denominations. These religious minorities sought refuge elsewhere in Iraq, especially Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq. Advances by ISIS into Kurdish territory and their siege of the Yazidis – a Kurdish-speaking Zoroastrian/Sufi religious community – near Mount Sinjar prompted the Obama administration to launch airstrikes to halt the group’s advance. Although President Obama stated that U.S. ground forces will not be returning to Iraq, these airstrikes constitute a return of American military forces to Iraq. The airstrikes have also created a debate over the effectiveness of President Obama’s foreign policy, which his former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, criticized in The Atlantic.
This topic brief will discuss the reasons for American intervention against the Islamic State, how President Obama’s team looks to stop the IS’s advance, and how the violence in Iraq could impact the American political scene. Extempers are urged to look in the premium content archives for our briefs on Iraqi violence (2013) and the rise of the ISIS (2014) for more background on this subject.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
American Action Against the Islamic State
2014 has been a banner year for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In January, the group, an off-shoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), took the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. It then took over Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, in June. ISIS is a Sunni Islamic militant group, so Sunnis who have become dissatisfied with the sectarian policies of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have flocked to it. ISIS’s control of territory in Syria and Iraq enabled it to proclaim a new entity called the Islamic State (IS) on June 29. The goal of ISIS is to eventually broaden the scope of the Islamic State to include Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Southern Turkey, and Israel. This would be a territorial entity governed under Islamic law. The territory that ISIS controls is larger than Great Britain and its successes have accelerated recruitment to its cause, given it funding via oil resources and bank reserves, and allowed it to acquire arms taken from the Iraqi Army. Although analysts thought that the Kurdistan Regional Government in Northern Iraq might be able to check the advance of ISIS, those predictions were dashed when ISIS overran Kurdish forces, referred to as the peshmerga, in recent engagements. There were fears that the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where the United States has an embassy, would be overrun by ISIS. This possibility, along with the humanitarian disaster that ISIS has caused among Iraq’s religious and ethnic minorities, has prompted the United States to return to Iraq.
One of the reasons that the ISIS has been able to acquire a large amount of territory inside of Iraq is that the United States no longer has a troop presence there. During his last year in office, President George W. Bush negotiated a Status of Forces Agreement (SFA) with the Iraqi government. This agreement, as Newsweek indicates on August 12, allowed for American troops to legally remain in Iraq through December 31, 2011. Iraqis were not happy that the agreement provided legal immunity to American troops, which meant that U.S. troops could not be prosecuted for non-major, premeditated felonies. The Middle East is highly critical of arrangements that confer legal immunity to Western forces as they reek of the capitulations that the Ottoman Empire had to endure at the hands of European forces from the sixteenth through twentieth centuries. The Status of Forces Act that the United States enjoyed with Iran prior to the Islamic Revolution, which conferred legal immunity on American military personnel, has been seen by historians as one of the reasons why Muhammad Reza Shah fell from power. During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama opposed the Iraq War and that opposition allowed him to defeat then-Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. Obama promised to wind down American commitments in Iraq and after taking office, he continued negotiations with the Iraqi government on a prolonged U.S. presence in the area. However, Prime Minister Maliki informed President Obama that there was little political support for extending the SFA if legal immunity continued to be granted to American troops. The U.S. government is reluctant to allow its troops to be governed by local or international laws, which is one of the reasons why the United States never joined the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the deadlock over legal immunity is what led to the last American troops leaving Iraq on December 31, 2011. President Obama’s critics, namely Senator John McCain of Arizona, argue that he did not negotiate in good faith with the Iraqis. Senator McCain insists that the Iraqis could have been convinced to confer legal immunity on American forces and that President Obama used the dispute over immunity as a convenient excuse to withdraw American forces. The President’s defenders argue that he was merely complying with the Bush administration’s SFA and when the Iraqi government refused to budge on legal immunity, he was compelled to withdraw American forces. The arguments over whether the U.S. should have worked harder to extend the SFA with the Iraqi government is one of the hot button topics concerning ISIS’s advance because it is unlikely that the militants would have overwhelmed American forces as they did Iraqi forces earlier this year.
On August 8, the U.S. carried out airstrikes on ISIS forces that were advancing toward Erbil and had placed Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking peoples who follow a religion that encompasses traits of Zoroastrianism and Sufism, under siege on Mount Sinjar. Yazidis scaled the mountain to avoid ISIS militants that overran their communities and massacred their inhabitants. They required international assistance to remain there, though, and the United States and Great Britain helped provide humanitarian aid through air drops. By all accounts, the American airstrikes finally halted ISIS’s advance and forced them to stop their siege of the Yazidis. In speaking to the press, President Obama justified the airstrikes to protect American personnel that work in Kurdish territory as well as staving off a “potential genocide” of the Yazidis. The Christian Science Monitor on August 13 adds that the United States is sending 130 military personnel to Iraq to assess the humanitarian crisis in the Kurdistan Regional Government and evaluate what should be done to further help the Yazidis. The UK Independent on August 14 reports that American visitors to Mount Sinjar argue that thousands of Yazidis have already evacuated the mountain and that an airlift of those who remain is not necessary. However, The Washington Post argues on August 14 that over 2,000 refugees remain on Mount Sinjar and they might require evacuation because they are those who could not make the trek through the desert into Kurdish territory. This includes children, the elderly, and those who are sick. Such an evacuation, according to The Guardian on August 14 would be difficult considering the terrain near Mount Sinjar, but not impossible. Additionally, Kurdish officials are warning American officials that more aid is needed for the Yazidis and regional authorities because refugees are putting significant stress on Kurdish communities. The BBC reports on August 14 that the United Nations has placed Iraq in the same emergency category as Syria, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic and estimates that 1.2 million refugees have been created by ISIS-inspired sectarian violence this year.
Aside from humanitarian aid, the airstrikes against ISIS near Mount Sinjar and those forces trying to mount a concerted campaign against Erbil might be the beginning of prolonged American military aid to the Kurdish peshmerga and the Iraqi government. President Obama has ruled out sending U.S. ground troops back to Iraq, but if the U.S. continues airstrikes then some special forces will have to be inserted into the fighting to relay information about what targets should be hit. The Center for Strategic and International Studies on August 13 reveals that the United States has begun providing armaments such as AK-47s and mortars to the peshmerga in the hopes that a beefed up military capability can allow local forces to combat ISIS. However, truly beefing up the Kurds capacity to fight the ISS may require more armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons, according to conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer. France has sent signals that it is also willing to provide the Kurds with the arms necessary to repel ISIS.
What President Obama’s Iraq Strategy Might Look Like
There are fears, though, that just supplying weapons to the Iraqi Army and the Kurds may not be enough. After all, the Iraqi Army ran away from Mosul in June as Shi’ites did not see the need to die for a Sunni-dominated city. Furthermore, the Kurdish peshmerga is facing overwhelming force from ISIS militants that are using captured equipment from the Iraqi Army, which was ironically provided by the United States. The Center of Strategic Studies argues that the best American military response would be to provide military support to the Kurds and the Iraqi Army through air cover. This would mirror the strategy the United States adopted in 2001 when it helped the Northern Alliance topple the Taliban in Afghanistan following the September 11 terrorist attacks. However, an airstrike campaign is not without risks. The Economist on August 16 warns that the use of airstrikes could lead to civilian casualties, which would assist ISIS in a propaganda campaign. Airstrikes would also do little to evict ISIS from the cities it has taken, as its fighters could easily go underground and fight guerilla-style campaigns. Still, based on the way previous battles between Kurdish, Iraqi, and ISIS forces have gone so far, a more aggressive U.S. military response is sorely needed if ISIS is to be contained.
Before the President commits to a sustained air campaign in Iraq, though, there will be questions that he will have to answer to the American public about why a sustained campaign is in the national interest. The President’s far-left supporters are not happy about the decision to potentially re-engage militarily with militants in Iraq, but that has little political impact on President Obama since he cannot constitutionally seek a third term in 2016. CNN on August 14 points out that unlike Syria, where President Obama’s plans to launch airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad’s forces failed to win over the public, America has a clear ally in Iraq and more of a moral responsibility. American blood and treasure has already been invested into making Iraq a successful nation-state, something that is not present in Syria. Furthermore, the lines between “good” and “evil” are much clearer in Iraq, whereas in Syria there are opposition groups that are moderate, radical, and are prone to fighting each other. The United States also has a clear ally in the Kurdish people in Iraq, who they have protected and supported since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The Kurds are arguably one of the most pro-American forces in the entire Middle East, so to fail to help them in a time of crisis would weaken America’s position in the eyes of the international community.
Where the President may face a bigger problem, though, is Congress, especially if the U.S. has to continue bombing ISIS targets for an indefinite period of time. Fox News, reprinting an article from The Wall Street Journal, on August 14 reveals that Congress is demanding a vote to authorize new military action in Iraq. This is a bipartisan effort as Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) have argued that new authorization is needed for the President to commit American forces to a new Iraq endeavor. The Center for Strategic Studies piece cited earlier argues that President Obama could use the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) resolution pertaining to Iraq to justify his actions. The AUMF carries no time limit, but it could be politically problematic for the Obama administration to use it as a justification for force since they have been trying to get Congress to repeal it in recent years. President Obama’s willingness to use executive actions to get around a deadlocked Congress has raised the ire of Republicans on Capitol Hill and arguably contributed to his low poll numbers. Committing American troops to a new Iraqi venture without congressional authorization, especially if the commitment breaches the ninety days of the War Powers Resolution, could further rupture the Obama administration’s ties with Congress, which are not that great with either major party. Therefore, extempers should be prepared to argue for or against presidential war powers of this sort in future rounds.
Aside from using military force, President Obama’s team is pushing for a new Iraqi government. They argue that part of the problem in Iraq is that Prime Minister Maliki has been too biased towards Iraq’s Shi’ites, who constitute the majority of the population, at the expense of other groups. Dissatisfaction with Maliki, which has been rising since U.S. forces withdrew in 2011, is certainly a contributing factor to the support ISIS has received from some of Iraq’s Sunnis, especially those who are more willing to take up arms against the central government in Baghdad. The Boston Review of August 12 writes that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of Iraq’s leading Shi’ite religious clerics, has argued for Maliki to step down as prime minister so that a more inclusive Iraqi government can be formed and rally the country against ISIS. Although Maliki is reluctant to go due to the fact that his coalition won the most votes in the country’s April parliamentary elections, there are steps to remove him. Last week, President Faud Masoum bypassed Maliki for the prime minister position and selected Dr. Haider al-Abadi, a senior politician in Maliki’s Dawa Party, to form a new governing coalition. If Dr. Abadi is able to do this, he would become the new prime minister. Maliki has vowed to challenge Masoum’s decision in court, arguing that he has unconstitutionally breaching his powers, but there may be little he can do about it without resorting to force. Al-Jazeera on August 14 reports that Dr. Abadi convinced more than half of Maliki’s coalition supporters to back him. Maliki also signed a letter declaring that he does not possess the largest bloc in parliament, which means that he would not be in the position to become the next prime minister. The U.S., the European Union (EU), the Arab League, the United Nations, and a host of other important Middle East actors such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran have given their support to Dr. Abadi, who they see as someone best able to unite Iraq. The Los Angeles Times on August 14 reveals that Dr. Abadi possess a reputation for being more pragmatic than Maliki and can work across the aisle with Iraq’s ethnic and religious minorities. Still, if he becomes prime minister there is no guarantee that Sunnis will back him since he enjoys support from radical Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and denies that Maliki is persecuting the country’s Sunnis. The Kurds have not cared for Dr. Abadi’s statements that their demands for more oil revenue are producing the country’s “disintegration.” Regardless, someone besides Maliki offers Iraq the possibility of a fresh start and the Obama administration is casting its lot behind Abadi, who it feels can rally the country against ISIS and limit a prolonged American military commitment.
Cooperating with other international actors is likely to be part of President Obama’s strategy as well since he has made multilateral engagement a cornerstone of his foreign policy. As stated in the previous section, France is lending its military support to the Kurds and Great Britain is helping to provide humanitarian assistance to the Yazidis and other groups. As ISIS’s power grows in the region, Western governments are becoming concerned about its potential for directing its energies outside of the Middle East. The Global Post on August 13 points out that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi likely wants to get revenge on the United States for imprisoning him in Iraq. Baghdadi allegedly told his captors after being released in 2009 that he would see them in New York. ISIS released a video last week claiming that it would soon “raise the flag of Allah in the White House.” Although ISIS is not going to take over American territory, there is the danger that Western citizens are becoming radicalized through digital mediums and other means, traveling to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS, and may one day bring back skills that could make them security threats. Time on August 10 argues that ISIS possesses a “decent complement” of fighters recruited from the West, which makes the group more menacing than al-Qaeda. There is a strong possibility that ISIS may one day redirect fighters, who possess Western passports, back to their countries of origin to wreak havoc. ISIS loves to use suicide bombers in its attacks and the West has thankfully been spared those attacks thus far. However, the stronger ISIS becomes and the more the West gets involved in fighting it, there is an increased risk that these attacks could occur. As a result, the United States and its Western allies must decide what is the best course of action: an ISIS that is contained within its present borders or an ISIS that does not exist at all. Completely eliminating it will prove difficult and costly, whereas containing it might be the cheaper and more effective option since it is still unclear whether the ISIS can govern a large population for an extended period of time. The problem with fighting ideological militants is that they are willing to take losses and suffer untold numbers of setbacks because they believe they will triumph in the end. Much like a Fortune 500 company that is willing to take losses to achieve massive profits, militant groups like ISIS and Boko Haram are willing to fight the long battle. They care little for elections or polls, which gives them an advantage over Western leaders. A few airstrikes are not going to displace ISIS. Only an international coalition that is pledged to sanction the group, monitor its activities, keep its forces in check, and commit itself to the long game that ISIS is willing to play can do that. Thus, it is very likely that the next president will inherit Iraq’s problems and that President Obama will not be able to solve them before the end of 2016.
The Domestic Political Fallout
In the immediate term, President Obama’s opponents are seizing upon the violence in Iraq to paint the administration as out of touch. Right after announcing the commencement of new military action in Iraq, President Obama flew to Martha’s Vinyard for a vacation. There is nothing against president’s taking vacations and in a digital era they can still do their work outside of Washington, D.C. Still, from a public relations standpoint it does make President Obama appear disconnected from what is taking place in the world as Iraq heats up, Ukraine and Russia are in a dispute over humanitarian aid, Syria burns, an Ebola outbreak continues to threaten West Africa, Gaza is still a mess, and America confronts racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius demanded last week that Obama should cease vacationing as people were dying (he blasted British Prime Minister David Cameron for doing the same thing). The UK Independent previously cited from August 14 notes that even if one considers criticisms of President Obama’s travels unfair, they do feed the opposition narrative that he does not like the day-to-day affairs of governing and is an “absentee President.” The silence of the Obama administration regarding the persecution of Christians since the beginning of the Arab Spring is galvanizing Christian Republicans and Democrats at home as well, with Democratic adviser Kirsten Powers arguing in USA Today on August 13 that the White House has been largely silent about the status of Christians in the ISIS takeover of Iraq. The turmoil that President Obama faces in the world is likely to figure prominently into Republican narratives against his administration this fall, which will put Democrats in red states on the defensive.
For 2016, Obama’s former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unleashed a barrage against the administration in a recent interview with The Atlantic. In that interview, Clinton, who is deemed as the probable Democratic presidential nominee in two years time, argued that President Obama’s foreign policy principle of “don’t do stupid stuff” was not an organizing principle. CNN points out on August 14 that the so-called “Don’t do stupid stuff (with “stuff” substituted for a four-letter curse word that starts with the letter s)” (DDSS) emerged in an off-the-record discussion with reporters earlier this year. CNN chastises the principle as “a parent’s advice to a teenager on prom night.” In fairness to the President, the DDSS doctrine is not entirely what his foreign policy has been about. In a speech to West Point graduates this spring, President Obama argued that he prefers diplomacy and multilateral engagement over unilateral and military-first policies. As the CNN article explains, the President argued that America should be willing to intervene in the world, but only when absolutely necessary. President Obama knows that he was elected on a platform of curbing American military involvement in the world, especially in the Middle East, so he loathe to go back to “hard power” lest he completely abandon the principles – not to mention his primary distinction from his predecessor George W. Bush – that he established. Still, President Obama’s step-by-step, case-by-case approach to international affairs has often left allies confused about where he stands on the important issues of the day. According to the Globe and Mail on August 14, Clinton and Obama made up at a social occasion at Martha’s Vinyard, with Clinton saying that she was proud to serve with the President, but it is no secret in the Beltway that the Clintons and Obamas do not get along. The New York Times on August 13 points out that the President’s staff things Secretary Clinton is making the Obama’s job harder in the foreign policy arena because the best diplomats and staffers are not wanting to accept assignments lest they place themselves out of the running in a future Clinton administration.
So, why would Secretary Clinton “backstab” her former boss? Pundits argue that Clinton is trying to distance herself from President Obama’s perceived failures in the foreign policy arena. Clinton is aware that Russia’s coldness toward the U.S. and the problems Libya and Iraq are currently facing could backfire on her in 2016, since she was the administration’s top foreign policy official. It is no secret, as The Nation notes on August 12, that Clinton has always been more of a “hawk” on foreign policy. She favored the surge into Afghanistan in 2009, argued for aid to the Syrian insurgents last year, wanted a tougher stance against Iran for its nuclear activities, favored Israel in the Middle East, and was a strong proponent for removing Moammer Gaddafi in Libya. Some of these positions are outside of what today’s liberal base of the Democratic Party prefers, but Clinton’s remarks might signal that she does not take a challenge from a more “progressive” Democrat seriously. Although names like Maryland Governor Peter O’Malley and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren have been floated as progressive challengers to Clinton, neither of them as seen as capable of defeating her in a prolonged presidential primary campaign. As a result, Clinton is already beginning to tack to where she thinks the American center on foreign policy is located, thereby staking out ground in advance of the next presidential election.
There are risks with Secretary Clinton’s strategy, though. First, it could invite a harsh progressive response, some of which is already emerging in the liberal blogosphere. Clinton’s ties to Wall Street make progressive Democrats queasy enough, but a more militant foreign policy that mirrors some of the neoconservative thought that led the country into Iraq might be too much for them to swallow. Foreign Policy on August 13 notes that the position of some progressives in the Democratic camp at this point is to simply “let the Middle East burn.” Liberals are also not happy that Clinton is speaking out against the President when it appears that midterm elections are going against the Democrats. They argue that she is providing Republicans more ammunition to fire at President Obama. These liberals would have much preferred Clinton and her husband to spend 2014 campaigning for Democratic House and Senate candidates instead of throwing the administration’s foreign policy under the bus. A second risk is that Clinton might be entering the 2016 campaign too early. The Washington Post on August 11 writes that there is little precedent of a former Secretary of State preparing a presidential campaign by criticizing the foreign policies of the administration they used to be a part of. By entering the limelight too quickly, Clinton is making herself a target and it risks mirroring her 2008 campaign where she peaked too early in the polls and then crashed in the early states where she needed to destroy potential challengers. Clinton’s decline in 2016 test polls relative to Senator Rand Paul and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie illustrate the risks she is taking by speaking out against President Obama’s foreign policy. A final risk is that Clinton may stake out a position that is not as popular with the American people as she thinks. The Hill on August 10 points out that one of Clinton’s criticisms against the President is that he did not arm the Syrian opposition fast enough, thereby creating a vacuum that ISIS took advantage of. The problem with this stand is that most Americans (55%) did not favor intervening in Syria last year despite Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Furthermore, as The Global Post article previously cited from August 13 notes, only 45% of Americans wanted airstrikes on the ISIS back in June and only 30% of Americans want to recommit ground troops to Iraq. Basically, Clinton is staking out a position that appeals to foreign policy hawks, but not necessarily a sizable portion of the American electorate. If Clinton were to face off against a foreign policy isolationist, someone along the lines of Senator Paul in November 2016, this could give her fits.
Extempers might be tired of talking about Iraq every season, but as long as the country remains unstable, the United States will be pressed to intervene in some way. This means that Iraq questions are not going away in the immediate future. Extempers should devote some of their time to studying Iraq’s history, its sectarian divides, its political dysfunction, its leadership, America’s history with the country, and what ISIS’s presence might mean for the future. After all, your judges have been told about Iraq’s problems for more than a decade now. Bringing a highly analytical, unique, and well-informed perspective to the issue will only help you in rounds.