David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post, has noticed a major lacuna in President Obama’s strategy for dealing with DAESH:
But there was a mysterious black box in the middle of Obama’s speech. Here’s how he tried to explain it: “The strategy that we are using now — airstrikes, special forces and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country — that is how we’ll achieve a more sustainable victory.â€
What “local forces†is Obama talking about? If he means Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria, yes, they’ve performed admirably. In Kurdish areas. They don’t want to clear and hold the Sunni heartland of the Islamic State, nor should they. If Obama is talking about the Shiite-led Iraqi military, its performance is still just barely adequate, even backed by U.S. air power, and it is disdained and mistrusted by the Sunnis of Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul. If he’s talking about the Islamist brigades in Syria armed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, it’s still not entirely clear whether they’re friend or foe.
The disturbing fact is that a strong, reliable, indigenous Sunni ground force doesn’t exist yet in Iraq or Syria. The United States has been trying to fix this problem since the fall of Mosul in June 2014, with very little success. We’re like the joke about the starving economist who needs to open a can of beans on a desert island and posits: “Assume we had a can opener!â€
That’s long been a fundamental problem with the president’s strategy. If fighting DAESH is in the U. S. interest, why hold the strategy hostage to the political and social vagaries of other countries? It makes little sense. If it’s not in the U. S. interest, our actions are immoral.
Unfortunately, that’s not the only weak assumption in the strategy the president outlined on Sunday evening. One of the issues he mentioned was the vital importance of cooperation from American Muslims. The problem—American Muslims don’t wanna:
President Obama’s request that Muslim Americans help “root out” and confront extremist ideology in their communities is getting mixed reactions. Muslim leaders say they want to help, but some are not happy that they are being singled out.
“We would never ask any other faith community to stand up and condemn acts of violence committed by people within their groups,” said Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, who has worked extensively with the Black Lives Matter movement and other minority groups. “The fact that this is only directed at the Muslim community is something that I personally can’t accept.”
During World War II the response of Japanese Americans to the questioning of their loyalty was to prove their detractors wrong. Of the 280,000 some-odd Japanese Americans in the United States at the outbreak of the war, roughly 10,000 served in the U. S. military—a number far greater than their numbers would suggest—and they served with distinction. The 442nd Infantry Regiment, the “Nisei regiment”, composed almost entirely of Japanese-Americans, was the most highly decorated unit in American military history.
The response of Muslims following 9/11 has been very different. Roughly .45% of those serving in the U. S. military are Muslims, compared with the 3-4% that Muslims comprise of the U. S. population. My impression is that American Muslims have religious scruples against fighting their fellow Muslims. The same scruples may apply to cooperation with the civil authorities. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that’s the case.
I’m not suggesting that American Muslims are under some obligation to serve in the military. They are under no such obligation. I’m just pointing out that President Obama may be expecting more than American Muslims are willing to give. It would be nice if they did more than whinge about practically non-existent hate crime. According to the FBI about 200 hate crimes against Muslims take place every year in a country of 310 million people. By comparison 1,000 hate crimes against Jews are committed every year even though Muslims outnumber Jews three to one (at least).
He’s being overly charitable with both the Shiite and Sunni factions.
To be fair, the Nisei Regiment wasn’t asked to fight the Japanese.
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I don’t think we’ve really got a good handle on what the American Muslim & Arab communities look like. I remember a few years back CAIR, I think it was, tried to claim there were then more Muslims in the US than Jews. Turns out they were counting pretty much everyone that had immigrated here from a Muslim country as a Muslim, even though there has been a fair bit of immigration to the US by non-Muslim Arabs and such, as Christians have been fleeing the MENA region for some time.
So not all Arabs in America are Muslim. (Same would go for emigres from other majority Muslim, or majority whatever country, for the most part.) Arab Christians just might want to be done with the whole damned lot of them. We’ve got a lot of Iranians in the country, too. A lot of them came here fleeing the Islamic Revolution in their home country, or as emigres before that. Many of those folks are rather secular, as in they don’t go to the Mosque on Friday just like a lot of Christians I know don’t go to Church on Sunday. I doubt those folks feel any particular need to speak out or act about their crazy co-religionists, especially given that most of the US problems in the 21st Century have been with Sunnis, and not Shiites.
The problem is that we really don’t seem to know what we’re dealing with, and I imagine there is a large divide between those that immigrated here prior to 1990 and those that have come here since (Somalis, Sudanese, Iraqis, etc.).
As Trump said, our leaders really don’t seem to know what’s going on, or if they do know they’re not making it clear.
For reasons Ellipses gives, I’d go with the lower estimates of Muslims in America (0.6% – 0.9%), but its probably doubled in the last 15 years. I’d also discount African-American Muslims (from the Nation of Islam and related movements) as not likely to be communing with the traditional Muslims. (They used to be 25% of Muslims, but I’m guessing that has decreased) Though this still leaves Muslims in America very fragmented, except in a few locations where they have density, like Dearborn and the largest U.S. cities.
I had the identical thought about the Nisei. (Incidentally, they were specifically excluded from the Pacific theater, not their choice.) And of course you know that Senator Daniel Inouye was one of them. His DSC (later properly upgraded to MOH) citation is here: http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/citations_1942_nisei/inouye.html
Rather greater service than I’ve ever rendered to this country.
According to the Christie article you cited Muslims were actually quite helpful in providing information that was helpful.
Steve
Here’s the problem, steve. It’s difficult to get reliable estimates of what’s actually going on. DHS doesn’t say much. What you get are anecdotal reports, one way or another.
I’ve read tons of off-the-record complaints from various intelligence chappies that we’re getting nothing from American Muslims. Is it true? BTSOM
OT: Any comment on this?
Dow Chemical, DuPont Said to Be in Late-Stage Merger Talks
Instead of two companies that compete with each other across a broad range of products & services, there will be three companies that don’t compete with each other at all. I’d think that this would have more antitrust implications than it apparently does.
Such contacts as I have (mostly employees of Pioneer Hi-Bred, acquired by DuPont in 1999), tell me that the incompetence with which DuPont is run is of staggering proportions.
Yep, that is a big hole in the President’s strategy.
Put simply, the the forces and resources are insufficient to achieve the stated goal. Sadly, this is an all-to-common political strategy – make big promises but employ and economy of force.
“OT: Any comment on this? Dow Chemical, DuPont Said to Be in Late-Stage Merger Talks”
My understanding is that Michelle Obamas lunch menu specifications plus the revival of Hostess are overwealming DuPont’s productive capacity…….
Ok. Ok. I have no specific knowledge, but generally mergers like this occur when a) business is crappy; merging can be a cost based solution or b) business lines, such as those three, have absolutely no reason to be together or c) Warren Buffett seeks monopoly power.