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Obama desperately needs a sense of history and a strategy

By Harlan Ullman
President Barack Obama delivers remarks before a Medal of Honor ceremony for Army Command Sergeant Major (ret.) Bennie G. Adkins and Army Specialist Four Donald P. Sloat for their heroic combat actions while serving in Vietnam, at the White House in Washington, D.C. on September 15, 2014. UPI/Kevin Dietsch
President Barack Obama delivers remarks before a Medal of Honor ceremony for Army Command Sergeant Major (ret.) Bennie G. Adkins and Army Specialist Four Donald P. Sloat for their heroic combat actions while serving in Vietnam, at the White House in Washington, D.C. on September 15, 2014. UPI/Kevin Dietsch | License Photo

In last week's televised address, President Barack Obama outlined his four-part plan for "degrading and destroying ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy" that will demand many partners inside and out of the region.

First is continuing systematic (air) strikes in Iraq and probably Syria against the Islamic State. Second is supporting local (i.e. Iraqi and Kurdish) and regional (i.e. Free Syrian Army) ground forces to roll IS back. Third is applying U.S. counter-terrorism capacities to prevent further IS attacks. And fourth is providing humanitarian assistance to people displaced by this conflict. While "winning" and "destroying" IS remain undefined, this conflict will not be over anytime soon.

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Sadly, as with this administration's strategies for Afghanistan-Pakistan and the more recent strategic pivot to Asia, this plan is currently incomplete and in some ways flawed. One way to expose these shortcomings is historical. Defeating IS may not be as monumental as winning World War II or the Cold War. But history is relevant.

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After Pearl Harbor, U.S. strategy was clear, decisive and based on forcing unconditional surrender on the Axis powers. Win first in the Atlantic by using Great Britain as the staging base for reoccupying North Africa, then Sicily and Italy and finally to mount the assault on Europe and Nazi Germany. Hold in the Pacific until sufficient forces could be fielded to launch an island-hopping campaign culminating in the invasion and occupation of Japan's home islands. Throughout, the American arsenal of democracy would be mobilized to equip a 12 million-man Army to overwhelm the enemy and then occupy and democratize it.

Similarly, the Cold War strategy became clear and decisive. Contain and deter the Soviet Union -- and for twenty plus years, Red China -- through a system of alliances to surround Russia (NATO, SEATO and CENTO aka the Baghdad Pact) and on the West's superior economies and military and thermonuclear technologies. Given the existential perception of threat, successive presidents were not squeamish about collaborating with unsavory regimes against the Soviet Union -- much as Churchill sought Stalin as an ally against the much more dangerous Adolph Hitler.

Subsequent war strategies were not as successful. Korea was a draw; Vietnam a defeat. The second Iraq and Afghan wars were tactical successes and strategic catastrophes leading to the danger posed by IS. They also exacerbated the complex rivalries among the many disparate states and radical non-state actors with competing, conflicting and occasionally complimentary interests and intentions. Hence, the clarity of any strategy may be more difficult to replicate than those that won World War II and the Cold War.

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But fixing the shortcomings in the current Obama plan is crucial to success. The first fatal flaw in the second Iraq and Afghan wars was not asking "what next?" Likewise, Obama's plan must address what could prove to be equally fatal flaws and omissions.

The new Iraqi government retains the scars and DNA of brutal internecine conflicts. Nouri al Maliki, a key architect of the current calamity, still is in that government. Prolonged battles over power sharing authorities, political inclusion and budget allocations persist among Sunni, Shia and Kurds. Success must rest on some semblance of an effective and integrated new Iraqi government and rebuilding and mobilizing its Army. But how will that happen?

Syria and Iran are central to defeating IS. For obvious political reasons, Obama cannot be Churchillian and embrace the Syrian and Iranian devils as lesser threats than IS and may not engage Russia, Syria's main ally. Covert diplomacy and deniable de facto deals against IS face the scrutiny of the Internet and social media in which keeping secrets may prove to be a lost art. But not addressing this conundrum frontally is a second shortcoming.

Third is the delay in engaging Sunnis inside and out of Iraq and Syria. This hiatus has allowed IS to use Ba'athists and former Saddamist army officers to set in place governing structures in captured territories. Undoing that penetration will be as difficult as recapturing Ramadi and Fallujah was during the second Iraq War.

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Fourth, if and when IS is defeated, who will govern in its stead and who will choose the governors as well create the institutions vital for governance? The plan is silent on this crucial issue.

Last, what is the chain of command for these complex operations and who is in charge of what? The highly dysfunctional Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq committed irreversible strategic blunders that could not be remedied. That cannot be allowed to occur again.

Perhaps at no time in America's history have the current challenges, contradictions and complications been so intense. History can help detect strategic flaws. Understanding what won the big wars and lost others is a useful guide. But does this White House have any sense of history -- or of strategy?

________________________________________________________________________ Harlan Ullman is Chairman of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and business and Senior Advisor at Washington D.C.'s Atlantic Council and Business Executives for National Security. His latest book, due out this fall is A Handful of Bullets: How the Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Still Menaces The Peace.

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