Obama’s Foreign Policy Strategy in the Middle East is Unsustainable

Jacob Sandman, Staff Reporter

In  cooperation with NATO and the United Arab Emirates, the United States began extending its air campaign against ISIS into Syria two weeks ago. This increase in American airstrikes goes against a speech Obama made on August 28th of this year, where he stated he was neither interested nor prepared to combat ISIS.

Now, however, the language has shifted to that of “degrading and destroying” the faux-government in his latest speeches. His actions are part of a trend that favors using air warfare instead of ground troops, and are an attempt to satisfy the anti-war public while still allowing warfare in Iraq and Syria. American intervention in Libya during 2011 is a clear example of this strategy in use.

The strikes in Iraq and Syria have the support of the majority of America, yet they ultimately represent a dangerous practice for the future of American security and its relations with the Muslim world. The ability for the leader of the world’s greatest superpower to conduct such quick retaliations to perceived threats is troubling. It creates an environment in which there is little risk factored into the decision-making process of engaging in war, which may in turn decrease the value of foreign civilians’ lives.

The most crippling effect of the airstrikes is the picture it paints of America in the Middle East. Even with heavy use of precision airstrikes, there will always be civilian casualties, which will undoubtedly be higher than troop casualties. So far in Syria, the official civilian death count resulting from American bombing is 21, but is likely to increase further. The U.S. State Department has even acknowledged that its rule of avoiding civilian casualties is not as absolute as it was in previous interventions. In the end, these interventions will only affirm the perception that America is overly involved in matters of which it has insufficient knowledge.