Even from a liberal Democrat:
A senior congressional Democrat said Tuesday that he’s concerned the Obama administration’s strategy for defeating ISIS is heading in the wrong direction. To the extent that the administration has been measuring success against the Islamist group by ticking off the number of airstrikes against ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria, as a White House spokesman did Monday, “alarm bells should be going off,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told reporters during a question and answer session in Washington. Schiff, the most senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called ISIS’s capture of Ramadi, Iraq, “a very serious and significant setback” in U.S.-led efforts to defeat the extremist group.
Another battle and another chaotic retreat by Iraqi government forces, who abandoned their positions in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province, despite U.S. air support and a last-minute appeal by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who called on his soldiers to “hold their positions.”
Only hours before the fall, the Baghdad government sent in reinforcements to try to contain what was a counterpunch mounted by the militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, to their defeat in Tikrit just weeks ago. Tikrit, in neighboring Salahaddin province, was the first substantial city lost by ISIS and it was hailed by U.S., and Iraqi leaders, as the start in earnest of the rollback of the militants.
U.S. officials are couching the loss of Ramadi as a setback rather than a blow, arguing they had always expected ups and downs and reversals mixed in with steady progress in the fight against the Islamic extremists and their Sunni allies in Iraq. Only on Friday, Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, was describing to reporters how ISIS is “on the defensive throughout Iraq and Syria,” although he cautioned the terror army will still have “episodic successes” but they won’t “materialize into long-term gains.”
Then when the White House sends over to Congress an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and Congress cannot provide approval it speaks to a wide known fact that there is no strategy with defeating global enemies most of which is ISIS. John Boehner, Speaker of the House has called for a strategy and a new AUMF request.
Boehner Demands an Obama Do-Over on AUMF
John A. Boehner said Tuesday that President Obama should withdraw his current war request from Congress and “start over,” coming up with an entirely new strategy to fight the Islamic State after this weekend’s setback in Iraq.
“We don’t have a strategy,” Mr. Boehner said in calling for the do-over.
The Ohio Republican had spent much of last year demanding Mr. Obama send up a request for Congress to authorize the use of military force, known in Capitol-speak as an AUMF. But when Mr. Obama finally did send one up, it left Congress paralyzed, and no major legislative action has occurred in the three months since.
Facing stiff criticism from those who say Congress is shirking its duties, Mr. Boehner said it was Mr. Obama who was failing by sending up a bad request.
He said Mr. Obama asked for less power to fight the Islamic State than he currently has under the 2001 legislation that authorized war against al Qaeda and the Taliban — the powers the president has already been relying on to fight the Islamic State for a year.
“The president’s request for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force calls for less authority than he has today,” Mr. Boehner said.
The demand comes just days after Iraqi troops retreated and Islamic State fighters took control of Ramadi, a city 70 miles from Baghdad. But it also comes after a U.S. special forces raid in Syria on Friday killed about a dozen Islamic State terrorists.
The contrast left some military analysts insisting it was evidence that U.S. troops will be needed to win the fight against the Islamic State.
