McCain frustrated with Obama on ISIS
Just spent an hour with Sen. John McCain, who came to visit the Arizona Republic editorial board.
The predations of the Islamist fundamentalist army known as ISIS occupied a lot of the senator's time with us, as you can imagine. More precisely, McCain's frustration with the lack of interest on the part of President Obama in addressing the rapidly spreading crisis the radicals are creating in Syria and, now, Iraq.
Our session with the senator was wide-ranging -- from the Veterans Administration's woes to the deteriorating mess in Iraq and to military cost overruns and the immigration stalemate -- but there were two issues that seemed to most animate McCain. One was the intransigence of the Republican-led House, especially regarding immigration.
The other was President Obama's resistance to leading. Especially now regarding the conflict with ISIS, which he (and an increasing number of defense analysts) judge a real and growing direct threat to the U.S. James Foley may be the first of many Americans targeted by ISIS.
For illustration, he spoke of the president's speech on Wednesday in response to Foley's grotesque murder. The president, said McCain, said all the right things in his speech about Foley... until he got to the part about doing anything in response.
To be clear, McCain advocates a dramatically stepped-up bombing campaign of ISIS forces in Syria and Iraq, not American boots on the ground. But all Obama would say is that the U.S. would work to "contain" ISIS, which frustrated McCain to no end.
"You don't contain these people. They're a virus."
Those anger-tinged comments by Obama on Wednesday plied some familiar themes. ISIS, he said, has "no place in the 21st century." You may remember Obama's Secretary of State expressing almost those exact words and sentiments in reference to Vladimir Putin's incursions into Crimea. And administration spokespeople have referred to the mullahs of Iran lagging behind 21st century thinking.
The problem, alas, is that scolding fundamentalist Islamist murderers for not living up to 21st century standards of behavior doesn't really do anything. Or say anything substantive about what your country's response to ISIS's expanding range of butchery is going to be.
The same is true of the president's observation that people like ISIS will fail, ultimately "because the future is won by those who build and not destroy."
Concerns about antiquated, destructive non-21st Century thinking is a theme Obama has repeated on numerous occasions. A lot of his critics have noted the passivity of the view, especially as applied to the problems in Iraq. It suggests things will turn out fine if we simply have the patience to stand back and do nothing, which appears to be Obama's preference.
Curiously, Obama first expressed it in regard to Iraq, at a July 2009 event at the White House with Iraqi President Maliki, in which the president announced his plans to withdraw from Iraq:
"As we move forward, Prime Minister Maliki and I have no doubt that there will be some tough days ahead. There will be attacks on Iraqi security forces and the American troops supporting them.
"There are still those in Iraq who would murder innocent men, women and children. There are still those who want to foment sectarian conflict. But make no mistake: Those efforts will fail.
"The Iraqi people have already rejected these forces of division and destruction. And American troops have the capability, the support and flexibility they need to stand with our Iraqi partners on behalf of a sovereign, secure, and self-reliant Iraq. Because we believe that the future does not belong to those who would destroy -- it belongs to those who would build."