On the Anniversary of Hiroshima, a New Nuclear Crossroads

Today marks a somber anniversary, the 70^th anniversary since the United States dropped the first of two nuclear weapons on Japan. Seven decades ago today, the US, ostensibly to end WWII in the Pacific, dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, followed three days later by a nuclear attack on Nagasaki. In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of people died in the two cities, and over one hundred thousand were killed in the initial blasts alone. The nuclear weapons used in the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were comparatively small compared to the destructive power of nuclear weapons today, and they still devastated two large cities. Japan marked the occasion with speeches by the few remaining survivors, a national moment of silence, and the tolling of a bell.

Pres. Obama speaks on the nuclear deal at American University

The anniversary comes at a moment when the United States faces yet another nuclear crossroads: whether or not to enact a nuclear deal reached with Iranian negotiators on July 14. On one side stands the Obama administration, which negotiated the deal and hopes to pass it through a Congressional vote, despite significant, somewhat bipartisan opposition. On the other stand politicians from both sides of the aisle, although largely Republican, who say the deal will not stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and argue that the US should continue the current sanctions regime in the hopes of obtaining a better deal. If such a deal never materializes, then armed intervention in Iran becomes an option.

Apocalypse Now: Islamic State's Real Strategic Goal

Forty-five people burned alive in western Iraq. Twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christians beheaded by the sea in Libya. Five Western aid workers and journalists executed, one Jordanian pilot incinerated, and two possibly related terrorist attacks in Western Cities. All in addition to the tens of thousands  of victims killed or forced into displacement by fighting in northern Syria and Iraq. If Islamic State is seeking to bring about signs of End Times, they are doing a pretty good job. Increasingly, policymakers are forced to take seriously the Islamic State’s self-declared mission: to bring about the Day of Judgment by sowing chaos in the world in the lead-up to the return of the Mahdi.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride Toyotas, who knew?

The only thing more terrifying than a power-hungry Islamic State that uses scripture as a pretext for brutality is one that actually believes in it. While Al Qaeda’s stated goals were largely ones of retribution against the West and its allies for perceived injuries to the Muslim-majority world, the Islamic State's doctrine has confounded policymakers due to its seemingly earnest belief that the apocalypse – and thus paradise for true believers – is at hand, and indeed can be pushed along by worldly deeds. Drawing upon Koranic texts that suggest the End Times will be signified by a battle between the armies of “Islam” and “Rome” in northern Syria (in the town Dabiq, which Islamic State already controls and has named its journal after), the Islamic State strategy of directly goading the United States into intervening in Syria and Iraq becomes much more rational. By drawing the US into battle, Islamic State would have its “Army of Rome.” And defeat of this army is just the first phase of the apocalypse.

Obama's New AUMF Lacks Much Needed Oomph

Yesterday, in a letter to the United States Congress, President Obama formally requested an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) in the fight against the Islamic State. Obama has been operating under and defending the current strategy against ISIS as within the scope of the two AUMFs passed under President Bush: the 2001 AUMF, which authorized combat operations in Afghanistan, and the 2002 AUMF, which authorized the Iraq War from 2003-2011. The President has sufficient authority as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to conduct the current operations against ISIS, but opposition has grown louder in the face of the terrorists’ expansion into Syria.

The AUMF proposed by the Obama Administration limits authorization to three years, thus avoiding embroiling the US in large-scale ground combat operations with no end in sight, which was the case with the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The President’s AUMF does not address the enduring 2001 and 2002 AUMFs and while it restricts the use of ground combat operations, it also excludes existing ground troops (ex. the US military personnel currently in Iraq) from these restrictions. This AUMF would allow the President to deploy new military personnel in the roles of intelligence collection and sharing, advisers, special operations forces, combat search and rescue personnel and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers to assist US air strikes. Lastly, this AUMF would sunset the 2002 AUMF, but not the 2001 AUMF, as the latter serves as legal justification for the broader war on terror.

Two aspects of this proposal are striking: it commits President Obama’s successor to operating under its terms for at least the first year of office; and it also does not significantly expand existing efforts against ISIS in any way. The proposed AUMF seems to lend political cover to ongoing operations against ISIS, which are comprised primarily of targeted airstrikes and operations against ISIS under Operation Inherent Resolve. This strategy has also placed upwards of 1,400 US military personnel in Iraq and costs on average $8.4 million per day.

The current strategy, according to President Obama’s announcement last September is to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State. The new AUMF proposes a continuation of this strategy, even through our current efforts seem to be yielding very little in the way of military gains against this fluid enemy. The existing military operations against ISIS will not accomplish the intended goal of annihilating the terrorist group as it has proven much more dynamic, adaptable, and better funded and staffed than previous threats.

Containing, let alone defeating, ISIS will require a robust and much more comprehensive military effort, which is possible under the terms of the current AUMF, but which may not necessarily be palatable to the American public. The new AUMF promises to prevent another open-ended military commitment to the region, but perhaps also promises to prevent significant victories against this terrorist outfit.

"Todos somos americanos": A Thaw in US-Cuban Relations

Obama with the firm handshake to Castro.
Courtesy Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

In what could be one of Pres. Barack Obama's crowning moments in foreign policy, the White House announced today that relations with the government of Cuba would be reopened after 50 years of enmity. In a statement today at noon, Pres. Obama announced that the two countries would move towards the establishment of formal relations in the coming months, including the reopening of a US embassy in Havana, the exchange of visits by high-level officials, and a review by the State Department of Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terror. He justified the move by arguing that US policy towards Cuba, largely driven by isolation and embargo, has "failed to advance our interests" given that Communist Castro government remains in power, while the lives of everyday Cubans have been made extremely difficult by US policy.

The news came on the heels of the release of imprisoned US subcontractor Alan Gross, who has been held in Cuba for 5 years on charges of subversion and whose imprisonment was a major barrier to Pres. Obama's goal of improving US-Cuban relations. Gross was arrested in 2009 for distributing illegal satellite technology in an attempt to increase internet access among Cuba's small Jewish community. The 65-year-old was in poor health, having lost 100 pounds during his imprisonment and going on a hunger strike in April, and had reportedly suggested to his family that he would commit suicide if his imprisonment continued.

Obama’s Foreign Policy: A Legacy of Interventionism

My colleague Colin Wolfgang recently wrote about Pres. Obama’s speech last Wednesday, in which the president announced that US airstrikes would extend from Iraq into Syria to combat the growing threat of the terrorist group ISIS(/IS/ISIL/who-cares-what-they-call-themselves-they’re-nuts). While many, including Mr. Wolfgang, point to the speech as a turning point in the Obama administration away from isolationism, it in fact continues the Obama White House foreign policy that has been in place since he took office: namely, Pres. Obama’s policy of small- to medium-scale military intervention by another name.

Whether you call it “police action,” “counterterrorism,” “targeted airstrikes,” or any of the other Obama administration euphemisms, this White House has pursued interventionist tactics in almost every global hotspot where it has encountered national security threats. The supposed difference from the George W. Bush administration has been the absence of “boots on the ground,” despite the fact that there will now be nearly 2,000 American “advisors” and who-knows-how-many special operations and CIA agents in Iraq. While large-scale military operations such as the Bush-era wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been wound down, the United States is far from an isolationist nation.

Part 2: From Anbar to Aleppo and Back Again

The most recent violence in Iraq did not appear suddenly, as if from nowhere. It’s been brewing since the US troop withdrawal in 2011, and was established during the US occupation, as discussed in Part I of this essay series. The insurgency’s fires have been flamed by the civil war that has been raging in Syria for roughly the same period of time. The conflict’s regional extension is the topic of Part 2 of my essay series on the increasingly likely Iraqi civil war.

Part 2: From Anbar to Aleppo and Back Again

ISIS may have been born in Iraq, but it came of age in Syria. Founded in 2003 as a branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) dedicated to combatting the US occupation of Iraq, the Islamic State in Iraq was one of many AQI-led terrorist groups that carried out attacks against both foreign forces and the newly elected Iraqi government of Nouri Al-Maliki during the civil war of 2006-2007. The group has long operated out of Al-Anbar province, while receiving aid and fighters from Syrian provinces across the border, where tribal connections run deeper than national boundaries. Despite a lull in attacks during the US surge, ISI operations began to ramp up as troop withdrawals began in 2009. The civilian death toll in Iraq has only continued to climb and each year reaches new, morbid heights:

And then came Syria. Already the launching ground and regrouping point for ISI attacks in Iraq, the rapid disintegration of government power in Syria provided the perfect vacuum for the group to step in and claim to join those fighting for freedom. At the same time as the final US troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011, Syria was descending into a civil war that would eventually act as a magnet for extremist groups including ISI, all of whom wanted a piece of the post-war spoils. The Islamic State in Iraq quickly transformed into the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (or “and Syria,” or “and the Levant”) to denote its expanded mission, and has now declared its name as simply “Islamic State,” indicating its goal of creating a caliphate that spans the Muslim world. In July 2012, ISI declared the “Breaking of the Walls” campaign, which culminated with over 500 militants freed in a prison break from the infamous Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad in July 2013. It broke off from Al Qaeda in January 2014, when arguments among the leadership over tactics and strategy apparently caused an irreparable rift.

Obama’s Foreign Policy (or “Lack Thereof”?)

My colleague Colin Wolfgang recently addressed the perceived shortcomings in Pres. Obama’s foreign policy, many of which speak to legitimate concerns. He suggests that the Obama administrations failures on foreign policy have not come from policy itself, but a lack of clear vision for America’s position in world affairs. Yet in doing so, he uttered a telling phrase about Obama’s “inability to project American dominance on the rest of the world in the same way his predecessors have done before him.” This history of American power projection and its detrimental effect on America’s credibility, coupled with the changing nature of the global balance of power, have resulted in the Obama administration’s current perceived inability to negotiate a better position for the United States. The administration’s policies, however, reflect both the wishes of the American citizenry and a new paradigm in international relations, one that places primacy not on power but on peace, not on the winning of wars but the avoidance of war by other means.

Pres. Obama riding a velociraptor. Because reasons.

 As he took office in January 2009, Pres. Obama was faced with a global financial crisis largely brought on by the policies of prior administrations, two unpopular and unsuccessful wars in the Middle East, and an increasing threat of Islamic extremism throughout the world. Despite these obstacles, for many observers Pres. Obama’s first term was a success in terms of his foreign policy initiatives, and foreign policy was considered one of his strengths vis-à-vis Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. He oversaw the final withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, established a timeline to wind down the Afghan war, attempted to close down Guantanamo Bay, and pursued a policy of limited drone warfare against terrorist groups. As his second term dawned, however, increasing political violence in Iraq clouded the success of troop withdrawal, a political stalemate with the Afghan government hindered the creation of a comprehensive transition plan, Guantanamo remained open (and still does), and the policy of drone warfare came under fire as the civilians affected by drones as well as drone operators spoke out about the program’s human costs.

Obama Suspends Aid to Egypt

In a far cry from President Obama’s 2009 speech at Cairo University, new plans are in the works to further distance the United States from Egypt, a longtime pillar of U.S. national security and partner in the Middle East. An anonymous official in the Obama Administration revealed today that the United States would drastically reduce its $1.3 billion in military assistance to Egypt, a move borne out of pointed frustration toward Egyptian military leaders.

Coming on the heels of recent clashes between Morsi supporters, opponents and security forces, the suspension of aid in some part functions as diplomatic disapproval of the heavy-handed and lethal tactics employed against demonstrators and the increasingly authoritarian behavior displayed by Egypt’s interim leadership—the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).  Just this Sunday, over 50 people were killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Since the military coup on July 3^rd that overthrew President Morsi—Egypt’s first democratically elected president—hundreds of people have been killed and thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters arrested during the ensuing social and political unrest. The Egyptian army has detained Morsi in a secret location since his overthrow, and the Ministry of Social Solidarity is on the cusp of banning the Muslim Brotherhood as a civil society organization after a court called for the ban and a freeze on the organization’s assets back in September. Backed by popular outrage, the SCAF is doing everything in its power to suppress both violence and the Islamists that came to power in June 2012.

Bread over Bombs: Why the US Should Not Strike Syria

Over the last week, The Global Atlas’s metaphorical lights have been off as the three lead contributors were either out of town, dealing with Allston Christmas, and starting the new school year and the flood of students and work that comes with it. In that week, Pres. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have raised the decibel level on the rhetoric surrounding the Syria crisis. Both have confirmed their belief that a chemical attack took place in late August, possibly followed by another; both have pointed the finger at Syrian President Bashar al-Asad; and both have hinted that military strikes will begin soon, but only with congressional approval. The likelihood of a strike increased this morning with the State Dept. ordering all of its non-emergency personnel out of Beirut, and issuing travel warnings for Turkey and Lebanon.

I’ve been pretty vocal in my criticism of the handling of the Syrian crisis, and I’m not about to change now: bombing Asad’s forces would be a huge mistake. It could have the allegedly unintended effect of toppling Asad; it could also very well prevent the use of chemical weapons by either side or others in the future, which of course is a desirable outcome. Yet its other effects would be so negative and detrimental to finding a sustainable peace in Syria that they would vastly outweigh any positives that could result from such a strike. As I have written before, the time for a military intervention has long passed, and toppling Asad without a negotiated settlement in place leaves us with unsavory choices for his replacement.