ISIS Threat Grows

- September 15, 2014

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Another ISIS Beheading
Over the weekend ISIS beheaded another person, British aid worker David Haines. What did President Obama decide to do? Play golf. You would think the president or his handlers would have learned by now that golfing at this time of heightened crisis isn't exactly sending the right messages. Obama recently admitted that he regretted the "optics" of his decision to go golfing with former NBA star Alonzo Mourning just minutes after addressing the beheading of American journalist James Foley.

Brand new polling from NBC/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg shows that Obama's approval rating on foreign policy is a paltry 34%. While 62% of Americans support Obama's decision to take action against ISIS, the bottom line is that people don't think he will succeed in his plan to defeat ISIS: "About two-thirds of people (68 percent) have 'very little' or 'just some' confidence in Obama's stated goal of "degrading" and "destroying" the Islamic State."

It's clear, Obama isn't up to the task.

The Threat Grows
It's clear that the threat of ISIS continues to grow and our strategy to defeat ISIS continues to be questioned. Reports show that ISIS is the richest terrorist network in the world. It takes in an average of $3 million a day through a combination of selling oil on the black market, stealing money or precious goods and even selling women and children as sex slaves.

Would an international coalition be up to the task of defeating and degrading ISIS? While the administration claims that international support is growing, the nature of that support remains questionable. For example, after the beheading of a British aid worker, UK Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to do what it takes to destroy ISIS. Specifics of the extent of the UK's involvement may have to wait, however, until after the Scottish referendum this Thursday.

Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden predicts that there will be upwards of 5,000 U.S. personnel on the ground to fight ISIS by the end of the year. Hayden also compared our current strategy of air strikes to "casual sex." He says, "The reliance on air power has all of the attraction of casual sex: It seems to offer gratification but with very little commitment. We need to be wary of a strategy that puts emphasis on air power and air power alone." Every military commander has suggested we'll need "boots on the ground" but nobody seems willing to act. Every day we go without a clear strategy is a day the enemy grows stronger.