General Discussion

morningfog

(18,115 posts) Thu Nov 6, 2014, 08:26 AM Nov 2014

Obama to Seek Congressional Backing for Military Campaign Against ISIS

President Obama said on Wednesday that he would seek specific authorization from Congress for the military campaign against the Islamic State, opening the door to a lengthy, potentially contentious debate over the nature and extent of American engagement in Iraq and Syria.

Mr. Obama’s announcement, at his post-election news conference, was not wholly unexpected. But it represented a significant shift from his earlier position that while he would welcome congressional backing, he had legal authority to take military action under existing statutes.

Administration officials said Mr. Obama still believed he had that authority, but with the elections over, he concluded that the time was right to petition Congress for more explicit authority.
“The world needs to know we are united behind this effort and that the men and women of our military deserve our clear and unified support,” Mr. Obama said, adding that he would begin a dialogue with congressional leaders when they come to the White House on Friday.

* * *

The president was guarded about the progress of the military operation against the Islamic State. He said it was too soon to say whether the United States and its allies were winning, noting that it would take a long time to upgrade Iraqi forces to the point where they could reclaim territory now held by the militants. He was even more circumspect about Syria.

“Our focus in Syria is not to solve the entire Syria situation, but rather to isolate the areas in which ISIL can operate,” he added, using an alternative name for the Islamic State.

That statement appeared somewhat at odds with a recent memo sent to the White House by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in which he criticized the administration’s Syria policy for failing to connect the campaign against the Islamic State to the broader struggle against President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr. Hagel wrote that unless the United States clarified its intentions against the Assad regime, it would fail to enlist allies like Turkey and France for the battle against the Islamic State in Syria, since those countries are intent on ousting Mr. Assad. Other officials said that in internal debates, Mr. Hagel has not advocated taking a strong line against Mr. Assad, and in fact has echoed the Pentagon’s resistance to going to war with the Syrian government.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

That will be one of the issues likely to come up in a congressional debate over authorization. Before the election, Congress passed limited authorization to pay for the training and equipping of Syrian rebels. Now the White House is seeking an authorization to use military force that would be tailored to a prolonged fight against ISIS.

Until now, the White House had justified its airstrikes in Iraq and Syria under two existing laws: a 2001 authorization passed after the 9/11 attacks, which Mr. Obama has invoked to carry out drone and missile strikes against suspected terrorists in Yemen and Somalia, and a 2002 authorization sought by President George W. Bush for the Iraq war.

“The idea is to right-size and update whatever authorization Congress provides to suit the current fight rather than previous fights,” Mr. Obama said. “We now have a different type of enemy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/world/middleeast/obama-to-seek-congressional-backing-for-military-campaign-against-isis.html?_r=0

There is a reason he is now asking for authorization. Either he feels he doesn't have the legal cover to wage the war as it is being waged now, or he feels he doesn't have the legal cover to expand the war as it will be. This will lead to more troops and, like the AUMF, a decade of war. This authorization will also be what the next president operates the Iraq/Syrian war under. Let's hope congress roundly refuses to authorize an expansion of this war.