WASHINGTON – Politicians from the left, right and even reporters on MSNBC are deriding President Obama's just-minted strategy to confront the Mideast terrorist army called Islamic State, or ISIS. Coming under particular scrutiny from both left and right has been a key part of Obama's plan: supporting so-called moderate rebels in Syria.
Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska said, "I am gravely concerned by reports of ISIS seizing and utilizing U.S. weapons intended for those fighting against the Syrian regime, and we must have greater assurance that we aren’t arming extremists who will eventually use the weapons against us."
His fellow Democrat, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., insisted he would "demand that the administration provide a very clear picture of its goals and objectives." "I believe any expanded U.S. military role beyond airstrikes in the fight against ISIS in Iraq must be approved by Congress," Udall added.
"The American people must be assured that we are not pursuing another open-ended conflict in the Middle East, and I will not give this president – or any other president – a blank check to begin another land war in Iraq."
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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, appeared to express the bewilderment of many across the political spectrum, saying, "One of the more incoherent aspects of the president's speech tonight was when he suggested the answer here is to arm rebels in Syria now."
He explained, "For more than a year, the president has suggested (there is) no sensible way to distinguish between radical Islamic terrorists like ISIS, like al-Nusra, that are fighting in Syria, and the other so-called moderates. It doesn't make sense."
A key pillar of Obama's strategy is crystal clear, and that is what he does not want to do, which is "involve American combat troops on foreign soil." Instead, the president wants to rely upon Syrian rebel forces fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Obama called upon Congress for increased resources, meaning more money and weapons, "to train and equip these fighters."
However, Obama never identified any of those rebel groups by name. In fact, regional experts wonder if there are any moderate rebel groups in Syria opposed to ISIS, as they find it increasingly difficult to identify any among those who are best known.
- Al-Nusra is al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria.
- Aharar al-Sham is a strictly Islamist group which, according to the New York Times, often serves as a bridge between "mainline rebels" and al-Nusra.
- The Free Syria Army, or FSA, has been most-often characterized as moderate and has been supported by the U.S. But assertions by regional analysts that most non-radicals have long since been purged from its ranks are boosted by recent reports that FSA "moderate" rebels had given two American journalist to ISIS, which then beheaded them. Reportedly, Steven Sotloff was sold to ISIS and James Foley was given to the jihadist army as a token of the FSA's allegiance to ISIS.
That doesn't leave many freedom-fighters to support in Syria, as even Obama himself made a point of noting a month ago when he ridiculed the idea of arming rebels as a "fantasy."
On Aug. 8, the president told the New York Times, "This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.”
A month later, the president had completely reversed course, as he embraced the idea of arming those rebels as an alternative to sending U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS in Syria.
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The president outlined a plan in a prime time television address on Wednesday night that had many confused observers wondering if that meant Obama's new plan in Syria was just the opposite of his old plan. Criticism was swift, severe and came from both the left and the right.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said, "The only thing I know is, anytime we try to arm people who think we are the friendlies over there, they end up using it against us. Those arms are used against us. So, I'm very concerned about that."
NBC's chief foreign correspondent was extremely critical of Obama when MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked about the strategy of using of "Arab partners" on the front lines instead of U.S. ground troops to secure the region, as in Yemen and Somalia.
Richard Engel bluntly stated, "I think it is wildly off-base, frankly. I think it's an oversimplification of the problem."
One difference, he noted, "In Yemen, there is a partnered government that doesn't have the force to reach some parts of the desert where al-Qaida is hiding out, so it relies on the United States to lend a hand to do some observation missions over Yemen."
The other difference was, "In Somalia, you have a group similar to al-Qaida that is generally ignored expect when U.S. special forces see an opportunity and target them. That's not at all the situation we are seeing in Iraq and Syria."
Engel concluded that what was need in Syria was, "Much more akin to regime change than waiting back and picking targets. The situations are not comparable at all."
Columnist Charles Krauthammer wondered aloud about the president's thought process, saying, "We just heard him saying a month ago that it was a fantasy to imagine that the pharmacists, doctors and the farmers of Syria can in any way go against their enemies."
"And now he's going to announce that he's going to give the pharmacists tanks. And, without any other support on the ground, somehow they're gonna prevail. I think that's unlikely," he dryly concluded.
Democrats were already blasting Obama's policy toward ISIS a month ago, calling it too tepid.
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., was critical of Obama's reluctance to use ground troops to fight ISIS, telling Fox News, “Ultimately, we may have some boots on the ground there.”
The ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said it was not something that he wanted,” but the U.S. cannot “put our head in the sand.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, was scathing and blunt in her criticism of Obama, saying, if the president was on a mission to stem Islamic extremism in the Mideast, it already "has been lost."
A veteran of two tours of duty in the Mideast and a captain in the Hawaii Army National Guard, the congresswoman questioned the wisdom of the administration's claim that U.S. air strikes are part of a humanitarian mission and not a campaign against ISIS.
"If our mission is not about taking out extremists, then we’ve got a real problem here,” she said.
The idea that moderates ever even existed in significant numbers among Syrian rebels was put into severe doubt by an article penned by WND senior staff writer Jerome Corsi a year ago.
He reported how Secretary of State John Kerry was largely basing his assertion that moderates were leading the battle against Assad, and that they comprised the majority of the Free Syria Army, on an op-ed written in the Wall Street Journal by Elizabeth O’Bagy, a 26-year-old who claimed to be a graduate student pursuing a doctorate in Arab studies and political science at Georgetown University.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year, Kerry cited O’Bagy, arguing that the war in Syria is “not being waged entirely or even predominately by dangerous Islamists and al-Qaida die-hards,” but rather the struggle was being led but “moderate opposition forces – a collection of groups known as the Free Syria Army.”
However, Corsi discovered the O’Bagy narrative was contradicted by intelligence estimates and experts specializing in the region.
After Kerry’s testimony to Congress, Reuters reported: “Secretary of State John Kerry’s public assertions that moderate Syrian opposition groups are growing in influence appear to be at odds with estimates by U.S. and European intelligence sources and non-governmental experts, who say Islamic extremists remain by far the fiercest and best-organized rebel elements.”
And, a week after Corsi's story appeared, WND's Chelsea Schlilling broke the news O'Bagy had been fired from her job at a Washington think-tank for lying about her credentials.
“The Institute for the Study of War has learned and confirmed that, contrary to her representations, Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy does not in fact have a Ph.D. degree from Georgetown University,” said the Institute for the Study of War a statement on Sept. 11, 2013.
Yet, the notion of "moderate" rebels in Syria has persisted despite the apparent lack of any credible documented evidence.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has been particularly skeptical about the existence of moderates in sufficient numbers to finance, train and arm Syrian rebels.
In June, the senator told WND he questioned the wisdom of sending of arms to Syria, as the administration had planned even months ago, because of the risk those weapons would end up in the hands of hard-core terrorists.
Following Obama's speech Wednesday in which he announced he now planned to seek increased support for Syrian rebels, WND contacted Lee's office to ask what the senator thought of Obama suddenly wanting to arm the fighters he had recently derided as doctors, pharmacists and farmers.
Lee's communications director, Brian Phillips, observed the president is "obviously feeling pressure to 'do something,' and it’s probably one of the things he believes Congress will agree on."
Lee was so concerned in June, he was the only member of the Senate Armed Services committee to vote against approving the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, and that panel includes such strong conservatives as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Phillips noted the confusion in trying to sort who was on what side was one of the primary reasons Lee not only voted against the funding NDAA, but was the one who sponsored the amendment to remove it.
In fact, Phillips observed, it was top Obama administration officials who expressed those same concerns before Congress.
"This is a big deal to me," Lee had told WND in June, saying he was particularly worried because U.S. Central Commander General Lloyd Austin could not assure him during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February that the assistance America provides will not fall into the wrong hands.
Austin testified that some weapons undoubtedly will wind up in the hands of extremist groups such as al-Nusra, which is affiliated with al-Qaida, and ISIS, which is so radical, even al-Qaida severed relations with them.
The senator had even more reason to be concerned about Western weapons falling into the wrong hands: It had already happened.
In December, WND security expert and former Pentagon analyst F. Michael Maloof detailed how nearly all of the weapons supplied by the West to its ally, the Free Syrian Army, were captured by the Islamic Front, a group that subscribes to the strict Islamic law of Shariah.
In June, National Security Adviser Susan Rice admitted the U.S. had been supplying arms to Syrian rebels, and without addressing where those weapons had ended up, cited it as an example of how the administration "has ramped up its support for the moderate vetted opposition, providing lethal and nonlethal support where we can to support both the civilian opposition and the military opposition.”
Administration critics repeatedly have cited problems with identifying actual moderates in Syria.
Lee said he is sure there are some moderates, as well as "lots of others that are not anything close to what we would call moderates."
But the real problem with vetting, Lee said, is the composition of those groups is changing constantly. "Those we might identify as moderates one day might not be the next day," he explained.
So who are the moderates the administration has identified in Syria?
President Obama met with the head of the opposition National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba, in Washington in May, so that group appears a likely candidate to receive the weapons Obama is planning to send.
However, the National Coalition backs the Free Syria Army, and they are the ones who had their weapons captured in December.
The weapons were seized by the Islamic Front, which, Maloof reported in WND, is a "coalition of some seven so-called 'moderate' Islamic militant groups opposing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad."
However, the definition of moderate is one Westerners might find a stretch.
Maloof noted, "[T]he Islamic Front’s published charter states that its aim is to establish an Islamic state in Syria with the implementation of Islamic law, or Shariah," which calls for the subjugation of women and death to those who insult Islam or the prophet Muhammad.
These "moderate" Islamic militant groups, Maloof reported, "also are also firmly against secularism or any human legislation, believing that laws come only from Allah.
It would make any non-Muslims in Syria, particularly Christians and other minorities, second-class citizens."
The boundaries between even those so-called moderate groups and the hard-core Islamists, such as al-Nusra and ISIS, becomes even murkier because they all collaborate.
Lee said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described these groups to be "in an agreement of convenience. The groups are quite fluid. They may disagree ideologically, but when it's convenient for them, in a tactical context, they will agree to work together."
Since the moderates will work with the fanatics, WND asked Lee, what's the difference?
"Yeah. I don't want to sound like there's no way of ever knowing whether some people, or some groups within the opposition, are moderates, but there is enough fluidity out there to cause a real risk here," the senator soberly reflected.
Maloof confirmed that fluidity when he reported, "Islamic Front members such as Ahrar al-Sham are difficult to distinguish from the al-Qaida-affiliated groups.
Ahrar al-Sham, for example, recently conducted a joint raid with Nusra Front and ISIL against Hezbollah and pro-Assad militias."
And Lee said that fluidity tells him, "You can't just say, 'We're going to vet the really well,' because even vetting them won't necessarily assure that a group that you get today won't tomorrow be affiliated with an effort that is hostile to the United States."
Doesn't that make it nearly impossible to identify how strong the moderate force is, in reality?
"Yes," he replied, "and it also makes it impossible for us to assure ourselves that aid that we provide won't end up, one way or another, in the hands of those who have every intention of harming us. That worries me a lot."
The lawmaker told WND the uncertainty in sending arms to rebels in Syria has to be taken into account very seriously and ought to be debated separately from the rest of the NDAA, and be the subject of its own debate in Congress.
Experts say the only way to ensure the rebels the U.S. arms are moderates is to vet them thoroughly.
However, former CIA operative and current Mideast analyst Clare Lopez told WND the problem, due to political correctness concerns about Islam, is intelligence agents do not vet rebels based on their ideology but on their associations and group memberships.
As an example, she described how U.S. special forces were sent to Jordan to train people who turned out to be jihadis, even though it was reported they “vetted everybody.”
“They vetted them and asked, ‘Did you ever belong to al-Qaida?’ and they said ‘Oh, no – not me!’ But did they ever ask them what their ideology was? They’re not allowed to. We’re not allowed to define our enemy, so how can we even identify our enemy? So, we fall into things like this where we actually train future ISIS jihadis, according to the Jordanian security officials.”
WND asked Phillips if anyone in Sen. Lee's office had heard anything about plans to vet the rebels.
"No, we haven’t heard any plans from the administration about vetting the rebels," he replied.
One final bit of confusion about the president's strategy.
Obama stated in his speech his intent "to degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS.
The next day, CNN reported Secretary of State Kerry did not feel the U.S was at war with ISIS.
Follow Garth Kant @DCgarth
Related columns: Obama has a 'strategy' -- but what's the real objective? by Alan Keyes Obama's incoherent war argument by Pat Buchanan No new war without congressional approval by Bill Press