President Barack Obama delivers a prime-time address from the White House in Washington on Wednesday, September 10. He vowed to target the group now calling itself the Islamic State with airstrikes "wherever they exist."

 

 

 

 

 

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Obama lays out ISIS strategy

 

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Editor's note: Aaron David Miller is a vice president and distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. Follow him on Twitter. Jason Brodsky is a research associate in the center's Middle East Program. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.

(CNN) -- Think that President Barack Obama has done a back flip on Iraq and Syria, gotten that old-time religion and is now a convert to the "let's kill them wherever we find them" approach of his predecessors? Think again, or at least lay down until the feeling passes.

Indeed, stripped to its essence, what the President has outlined isn't some grand strategy to transform the region or even to "ultimately destroy" ISIS; it's a much narrower transactional one to protect the homeland. And here's why:

Aaron David Miller

The speech the President gave is quite consistent with who he is and what his priorities have been all along, particularly relating to counterterrorism. Sure he's now morphed from a desire to avoid militarizing the U.S. role in Syria to a new willingness to do so. But the reason he's traveled down that road is critical.

It's not some ideological crusade, fascination with nation-building or democratization of a new Middle East.

ISIS now poses a threat to the homeland, a contingency that could not only directly threaten Americans but destroy his presidency as well. And the one area where Obama has been prepared to be ready to take on risk is in counterterrorism.

Anti-terrorist in chief

 

U.S. flying surveillance over Syria

 

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Indeed, it's hardly a secret and it is a disappointment to many of his own supporters that this President long ago morphed into a much more disciplined and risk-ready anti-terrorist than his predecessor.

He doubled down in Afghanistan; used drones 10 times more than President George W. Bush (431 targeted killings); authorized the mission that killed Osama bin Laden; dismantled much of al Qaeda central; and has been involved in a giant game of Whack-a-Mole these past six years against bad guys from Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia.

ISIS might not be a threat to the homeland now. According to the State Department's Annual Report on Terrorism for 2013, there were 17,891 global fatalities because of terror; only 16 Americans were among them.

But who knows how ISIS might direct its efforts in the future? It's richer, smarter and more capable than al Qaeda in many respects. And there's quite a bit of time left on Obama's presidential clock. He simply cannot afford to play loose on this issue.

Indeed he must be perceived and in fact deliver on doing everything he possibly can to preempt and prevent ISIS from striking here or in the region against Americans.

He wasn't 20 seconds intro his speech before he said the following: "As commander in chief, my highest priority is the security of the American people."

And the polls demonstrate pretty conclusively that ISIS is on America's radar screen and people see it as a real threat.

Grand strategy? Not really

We'd love to believe that all parts of the strategy the President laid out Wednesday night can work seamlessly in pursuit of that ultimate presidential responsibility. But it's hard to imagine they will.

Securing an end state in Iraq and Syria that will somehow lead to good governance and reduce the grievances on which ISIS feeds seems a real stretch.

It won't happen quickly, easily or probably at all, certainly not without Syrians and Iraqis taking real ownership. And getting a bunch of constrained Sunni Arab allies on board who seem at odds with one another -- namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE on the one hand and Qatar and Turkey on the other -- also seems very unlikely.

Certainly plans to get Arabs on the ground to actually fight against ISIS -- now bandied about by some very smart people -- are also a bridge too far. Providing bases and money to train Syrians to fight, sure; sharing intelligence, absolutely. But we need to keep our expectations very low.

Any kind of Sunni Arab state coalition of the willing actually willing to enter the fight against ISIS on the ground seems like a fanciful scene out of a bad Hollywood movie. The only way the Arab states are willing to fight ISIS? To the last American.

Is the enemy of my enemy my friend?

Iran is another problematic piece of the puzzle -- and was not mentioned at all in the President's speech.

The administration has a short-term coincidence of interest with Iran against ISIS. We've seen this movie before in the first Gulf War in the early 1990s when Iran condemned Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and in Afghanistan in 2001, when elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were on the ground training and fighting alongside U.S. Special Operations forces to bolster the Northern Alliance.

But the emphasis should be the on short term.

Tehran has a different vision for Iraq and Syria than we do. Consider the machinations in Baghdad over the past decade by Qassem Suleimani, head of the Qods Force. So any notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend just doesn't add up in this case. Iran isn't America's friend.

Whether the administration can fashion an effective fighting force out of scores of Syrian militias is a very arguable proposition. Let's road test it. But it will take time.

In the interim, we will have enough difficulty operating against ISIS on our own without good intelligence and special forces on the ground, and getting at ISIS in the midst of a civil war.

In the end, whether this approach works or not, the essence of the President's policy will end up being driven by U.S. air power: Destroy ISIS from the air, certainly as they move across the border into Iraq and then as the intel improves, attack them in Syria, too, and empower our new allies to do so on the ground.

After more than a decade of the war on terror against al Qaeda, if you asked us what the most immediate threat to the continental United States is, we wouldn't say ISIS. We'd say al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with its demonstrated capacity to make bombs and to try to attack America.

Our point isn't to deny the success of counterterrorism efforts; it's to suggest that hitting one jihadist group usually means that affiliates and derivatives emerge. And that's likely to happen even with great success against ISIS. This really is the long war. Fighting these people is like breathing. You just can't stop.

We think the President gets all this.

And frankly, there really isn't much more he could have said or in fact much more he could be doing. In the end, this is not about grand plans, designs and hopes to transform the Middle East -- one broken, angry and dysfunctional region of the world.

For America, it's about how to continue our track record: no al Qaeda-directed attacks on U.S. soil in 13 years.

You can dress it up all you want with allies, coalitions, political reforms and inclusiveness. But Obama knows that in the end when stripped to its essence, it's about killing bad guys before they have

a chance to kill us.

奧巴馬的策略：殺死ISIS他們殺了我們面前
由亞倫戴維·米勒和傑森布羅德斯基
2014年9月12日 - 更新0326 GMT（1126 HKT）
美國總統奧巴馬提供來自華盛頓的白宮週三黃金時段的地址，9月10日，他發誓要針對該集團現在自稱為伊斯蘭國家與空襲“無論它們的存在。” 美國總統奧巴馬提供來自華盛頓的白宮週三黃金時段的地址，9月10日，他發誓要針對該集團現在自稱為伊斯蘭國家與空襲“無論它們的存在。”
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奧巴馬勾畫出的ISIS戰略
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新聞提要
已奧巴馬總統恢復到喬治·W·布什的反恐和中東政策？
亞倫·米勒說，布什總統，而不是被狹隘地側重於防止恐怖主義的家園
他說，奧巴馬早就把他的信仰在反恐，包括無人駕駛飛機襲擊
奧巴馬知道他的總統任期將在一定程度上判斷他是否保持美國安全，米勒說
編者按：亞倫戴維·米勒是在公司的副總裁和著名學者伍德羅·威爾遜國際學者中心，是中東談判代表在民主黨和共和黨政府。按照他的微博。賈森·布羅茨基是一個研究助理在該中心的中東計劃。發表本評論中的觀點僅代表作者。
（CNN） -想一想，奧巴馬總統做對伊拉克和敘利亞後空翻，得到的是舊時代的宗教，現在是轉換到“讓我們殺了他們的地方，我們找到他們”，他的前任的做法？再想想，或者至少是放下，直到這種感覺消失。
事實上，剝去它的本質，什麼總統概述了是不是有些大戰略，以改變該地區，甚至為“最終毀滅”ISIS; 這是一個更窄的交易人保護家園。這裡的原因：
亞倫大衛·米勒
亞倫大衛·米勒
總統給的演講是他是什麼，他的工作重點一直一直以來，特別是有關反恐誰相當一致。當然他現在搖身一變，從一個願望，避免軍事化在敘利亞的美國的作用，以新的意願這樣做。但他走過這條道路的原因是至關重要的。
這不是一些意識形態的十字軍東征，迷戀與國家建設或新的中東民主化。
ISIS目前不會對國內的威脅，應急，可能不僅直接威脅到美國人卻毀了他的總統任期為好。並在奧巴馬已經準備要準備好承擔風險的一個領域是反恐。
反恐總司令
美國飛行偵察過敘利亞 克里：美國是不是在與ISIS的戰爭 里奇批評奧巴馬的ISIS戰略
事實上，它幾乎沒有一個秘密，這是一個令人失望的許多他的支持者，這個總統早就演變成一個更加有紀律和風險準備反恐比他的前任。
他在阿富汗加大了投入; 使用無人駕駛飛機比總統喬治·W·布什（10倍以上的431定點清除）; 授權殺死本·拉登的任務; 拆除多少基地組織的核心; 並已參與了捶一個痣這六年來對壞人從巴基斯坦到也門和索馬里的一個巨大的遊戲。
ISIS未必是祖國的威脅了。根據國務院的有關恐怖主義的2013年年報，共有17891全球因恐怖的死亡; 只有16個美國人在他們中間。
但誰知道如何ISIS的可能指導其未來的努力？這是更豐富，更智能，比基地組織更能夠在許多方面。並有相當多的時間留在奧巴馬總統的時鐘。他根本就沒有能力在這個問題上松玩。

事實上，他必須被視為事實上履行做一切他所能搶占，防止ISIS的撞擊在這裡還是在對抗美國人的區域。
他在20秒引導頁講話之前，他說了以下內容：“作為總司令，我的優先級最高的是美國人民的安全”
而調查表明相當確鑿的ISIS是在美國的雷達屏幕上，人們把它看作是一個真正的威脅。
大戰略是什麼？並不是的
我們很願意相信，戰略院長各地制定了週三晚上可以追求的最終總統職責無縫協作。但很難想像他們會的。
確保在伊拉克和敘利亞結束狀態，這將在某種程度上導致良好的治理和減少其ISIS助長了怨氣，似乎真正的舒展。
這不會很快發生，很容易甚至可能不惜一切，當然不是沒有敘利亞人和伊拉克人採取真正的所有權。並獲得了一堆船上約束遜尼派阿拉伯盟友誰似乎不符合彼此的 - 即沙特阿拉伯，埃及和阿聯酋，一方面與卡塔爾和土耳其的另一方面 - 似乎也不太可能。
當然，計劃讓阿拉伯人在地面上居然對ISIS的戰鬥 - 現在不停地談論一些非常聰明的人 - 也是一個橋樑太遠。提供基地和金錢培訓敘利亞人打，肯定; 共享情報，絕對。但是，我們需要保持非常低了我們的預期。
任何種類的居然肯願意進入對ISIS在地面上的戰鬥遜尼派阿拉伯國家聯盟似乎是一個奇特的景象了一個糟糕的好萊塢電影。唯一的辦法，阿拉伯國家願意打仗的ISIS？到最後美國人。
是我的敵人我朋友的敵人呢？
伊朗是另一個問題的一塊拼圖 - 並沒有在總統的演講中提到的。
當局已與ISIS對伊朗的利益短期巧合。我們已經看過這部電影之前，在第一次海灣戰爭中的上世紀90年代初，當伊朗譴責薩達姆·侯賽因入侵科威特和阿富汗在2001年，當時的伊斯蘭革命衛隊的要素是在地面訓練和並肩作戰的美國特種作戰部隊以加強北方聯盟。
但重點應該是在短期內。
德黑蘭有不同的願景，伊拉克和敘利亞比我們多。考慮在巴格達的陰謀了由卡西姆Suleimani的聖城部隊的負責人在過去的十年。所以，我的敵人的敵人是我的朋友的任何想法只是沒有在這種情況下，積少成多。伊朗不是美國的朋友。
政府是否可以塑造一個有效的戰鬥力量了敘利亞民兵分數是一個非常值得商榷的命題。讓我們的道路測試。但是，這需要時間。
在此期間，我們將有足夠的經營困難對ISIS我們自己沒有良好的情報和地面特種部隊，並在I​​sis在內戰之中得到。
最後，這種做法是否有效與否，總統的政策將結束的精髓正在推動美國的空中力量：從空中摧毀ISIS的，當然，他們越過邊界進入伊拉克，然後是英特爾提高，攻擊移動他們在敘利亞，也並賦予我們新的盟友這樣做在地上。
經過十餘年的反恐戰爭對基地組織的，如果你問我們什麼最直接威脅美國本土的，我們不會說ISIS。我們會說，基地組織在阿拉伯半島，其表現出的能力來製造炸彈，並試圖攻擊美國。
我們的觀點是不能否認的反恐努力取得成功; 這表明，打1聖戰組織通常意味著分支機構和衍生品出現。而這很可能即使對ISIS的巨大成功的情況發生。這真的是漫長的戰爭。戰鬥的這些人就像是呼吸。你就不能停下來。
我們認為，總統得到這一切。
而且說實話，真的沒有更多的他可以說其實還是更多，他可以做的。最後，這是不是宏偉的計劃，設計並希望把中東 - 一個壞了，生氣和不正常的世界區域。
對於美國來說，它是關於如何繼續我們的跟踪記錄：13年在美國本土沒有基地組織定向攻擊。
你想與盟友的聯盟，政治改革和包容性，你可以穿著它。但奧巴馬知道，在剝離時，其本質到底，這是關於殺壞人，他們有機會殺死我們面前。