This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The heart of President Obama's address to the country Sunday concerned what he doesn't want to do in response to terrorism. After reviewing steps he has already taken or proposed to fight the Islamic State and prevent attacks inside the homeland, the president delivered what sounded like his main appeal: "Our success won't depend on tough talk, or abandoning our values or giving into fear." He went on to explain — again — why he opposes "a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria," and why "we cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam."
Obama had good reasons to make this pitch. The San Bernardino, California, shooting, following closely on the Paris attacks, has understandably raised anxiety among Americans, who wonder, as the president put it, "whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure." It has also prompted irresponsible and bigoted rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail, where GOP candidates are promising to "carpet bomb them into oblivion" (Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas) or a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" (Donald Trump).
While no one — with the partial exception of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C. — has propped up Obama's straw man of launching another U.S. ground war, some are pretending that quick and facile military solutions exist. More seriously, there is a real danger that the rhetoric of Republicans will poison one of America's greatest strengths in this fight, which is the relatively strong integration and loyalty to the country of the vast majority of American Muslims. Obama got it right in saying that while Muslims must confront the extremist ideology that has spread within some of their communities, for Americans to turn on that minority as a whole is exactly what the jihadists hope for.
Obama also was correct in saying that he has stepped up the war in Iraq and Syria since the Paris attacks, taking measures that critics (including us) have recommended for a year or more. Bombing has increased and Special Operations forces will be deployed in both countries to help coordinate offensives by local troops — though it appears the U.S. boots may not arrive on the ground for months.
The new measures give the lie to Obama's claim a month ago that the only alternative to his military strategy was putting "large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground." Unfortunately, he still is not doing what is needed to "destroy" the Islamic State, as the president defined the goal on Sunday. That destruction would require a Sunni ground force, made up of Syrians, Iraqis and perhaps foreign troops from the Persian Gulf and Turkey, with substantial U.S. support.
But no such force will go after the Islamic State as long as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies are waging their barbaric war on Sunnis in Syria. Though Secretary of State John F. Kerry is pushing a diplomatic process that he hopes could lead to a cease-fire, he's unlikely to succeed until anti-Assad rebels are substantially strengthened on the ground. That remains the missing piece of Obama's strategy.