Good read. No telling what will happen between now and November, but the election is quickly becoming one about national security.
How the war against Islamic State became center stage in the 2016 campaign
President Obama addresses the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday. (Pool photo by Saul Loeb/via AP)
By Dan Balz
December 7, 2015
The instantaneous reaction to President Obama’s Oval Office speech on terrorism was as predictable as it was partisan. The battle over how to confront the threats from Islamic State militants has been baked into the politics of 2016.
Republicans see the president as a weak leader pursuing a failing strategy and who stubbornly refuses to call the enemy “radical Islamic terrorists.” The president sees his Republican critics as purveyors of cheap bellicosity who lack effective alternatives to his policies and who are playing into the hands of jihadist recruiters by seeming to attack all Muslims.
The president’s Sunday night speech was one he was required to deliver and one that was likely to change few minds. His public remarks ever since the terrorist attacks in Paris last month have been off-key and lacking in persuasion.
From his news conference in Turkey a few days after those attacks, when he was thrown on the defensive by a series of questions about the administration’s strategy, to his White House remarks the day before Thanksgiving (and less than a week before the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre), when he said there was no credible threat against the homeland, Obama has been fighting a rear-guard action in the battle for public opinion.
On Sunday night, squeezed between an afternoon and evening of football, he stepped to a lectern in the Oval Office and tried again.
Play Video0:502016 candidates react to Obama's address on social media
GOP presidential candidates and House Speaker Paul Ryan responded quickly on Twitter and Facebook to President Obama's televised address Dec. 6. Obama sought to reassure Americans after a deadly California shooting rampage that raised new questions about security against terrorism. (Reuters)
[Obama vows to destroy Islamic State]
He was transparent about the dangers that exist and forceful in his pledge to eliminate them. “The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it,” he said. “We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us.”
He outlined the administration’s four-point strategy: hunting down terrorists wherever they are, training Iraqi and Syrian fighters, allied actions to disrupt Islamic State operations, and the pursuit of joint efforts to bring an end to the civil war in Syria.
“This is our strategy to destroy ISIL,” he said, using another acronym for the Islamic State. “It is designed and supported by our military commanders and counterterrorism experts, together with 65 countries that have joined an American-led coalition. And we constantly examine our strategy to determine when additional steps are needed to get the job done.”
He called on Congress to pass a new authorization for the use of military force — challenging Republicans who have urged him to pursue a more aggressive military posture against the Islamic State to show their willingness to put Americans in harm’s way. But he warned against another “long and costly ground war” in the Middle East.
He decried anything that might cast the struggle as a war between the United States and Islam, seeking to separate what he called the “thugs and killers” of the Islamic State from the vast majority of Muslims. He warned against religious tests that would determine who gains entry to the country. But he also called on American Muslims to confront the dangers within and to fight against extremist ideology in the name of their religion.
He also called again for new measures to restrict access to guns.
What he did not do, however, was notable as well. He did not offer a new strategy. He did not try to address where the strategy he has been pursuing has fallen short and why — or, if he is confident that it is working, address the now wide gap between what he says is happening and how the public perceives what is happening.
At this moment, Obama suffers from a deficit in public opinion on his policy, much as the country lost confidence in the Iraq War policies of former president George W. Bush. Just 40 percent approve of the way he is dealing with terrorism, according to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News Poll. This on the very issue that was for so long his strongest suit even when his overall approval ratings were sagging.
Things are worse when it comes to public perceptions of the president’s handling of the threats from the Islamic State. Just 35 percent approve of the way he is dealing with those threats, while 57 percent disapprove — with 46 percent strongly disapproving. Among independents, 6 in 10 disapprove, 50 percent strongly. Even one-third of Democrats give him negative marks.
In what everyone concedes will be a long struggle against the Islamic State and other such threats, Obama’s opportunities to change public perceptions quickly are limited. Every accomplishment on the ground in the Middle East in containing or rolling back the militants is overwhelmed by attacks like those in Paris and San Bernardino. His speech might have been necessary, but it also appears destined to have a short shelf life.
[Obama struggles to be heard in the debate over Islamic State]
In this environment, Republicans see their own opportunities, and they were quick to strike in the hours after the president finished his speech. From the Republican presidential candidates came a chorus of denunciations, in tweets and written statements. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) appeared on Fox News shortly after the speech and said, “I think not only did the president not make things better tonight, I fear he may have made things worse in the minds of many Americans.”
The gulf between the president and his GOP critics can’t be bridged. He decries, as he did on Sunday night, what he regards as empty rhetoric from his opponents, saying success will not be based on “tough talk” but on an intelligent and persistent strategy. Republicans decry what they see as a president too cerebral and laid back to rally the country against the enemy.
Caught in the middle is Hillary Clinton. Hours before the speech, she said on ABC’s “This Week” that the United States is not winning the war against the Islamic State and indicated that she expected to hear “an intensification of the existing strategy” from the president. Shortly after the speech, Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations tweeted: “two things missing from @potus address: intensification of military strategy; preparing Americans for additional domestic acts of terrorism.”
Over the next 11 months, the American people will have to decide whom they trust to carry on this struggle after the Obama presidency ends and whether anyone has a strategy and the strength of leadership to make it work. The president’s address probably will be remembered as a way station in the debate, but not a turning point.
Dan Balz is Chief Correspondent at The Washington Post. He has served as the paper’s National Editor, Political Editor, White House correspondent and Southwest correspondent.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-war-against-isis-became-center-stage-in-the-2016-campaign/2015/12/07/6ca95314-9cf9-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html
