Terror Defense No Al Qaida Terror

Obama’s soft power fails – Libya, Ukraine, and Iraq prove.

*Modified for ableist language

First on Obama’s agenda was a whirlwind apology tour where he took it upon himself to travel the globe genuflecting to everyone from France to Turkey, to the entire North and South American continents about everything including colonialism, Guantanamo Bay, and even the treatment of Native Americans.

Obama then pursued an ambitious agenda of international treaties including the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. Each of these agreements sold out American sovereignty without gaining any additional security for Americans in return.

Since then, Obama has famously celebrated his decision to remove all combat troops from Iraq, sent conflicting messages of support and condemnation to Egypt and its governments, conducted a drive-by war in Libya, threatened and then backed down from bombing Syria, and then looked on helplessly as Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, annexing the Crimea peninsula and possibly more.

And finally in Iraq, Obama proudly took credit for pulling all combat troops out of the country in 2011, promising that he was “confident” the country could “build a future worthy of their history as a cradle of civilization.” But now that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has taken over almost half the country, is massacring Iraqis, and is threatening to taken over Baghdad, suddenly Obama is blaming the Iraqi government for his troop withdrawal and is sending U.S. troops back to Baghdad.

As a result of all these disasters, Obama has completely fumbled away the Democratic Party’s advantage on foreign policy. It is now Republicans that, again, enjoy a 10-point margin in trust on the issue.

Soft power fails – it takes too long and signals weakness, allowing conflicts to escalate.

The results could hardly be a surprise, given recent history. Waiting around for soft power or multilateral bodies to work led to mass civilian deaths in Kosovo and Rwanda in the 1990s. It is not just that Obama repudiated his own liberal advisers’ idea that we have a “responsibility to protect” (R2P) those facing aggression and mass murder; it is that we have turned it on its head. The administration now asserts that it would be irresponsible to protect others. It is monstrously immoral, demanding that we must stand idly by while innocents are harmed and threats to our security build — and that others must, too. You don’t have to believe that Obama wants dictators, mass murderers and terrorists to win to see that his policies make it more tempting for them to try and more likely that they will prevail.

Eventually, Obama must succumb (e.g. against Libya, the Islamic State) to international realities and use some force. But if he can’t avoid force altogether, he will do the next best thing — use such limited, distant force that he can claim his ban on hard power is more or less intact.

He insisted on an airpower-only strategy in Libya, then subcontracted even that to NATO and now cannot be bothered to see that the country is once again a haven for jihadists. And Yemen, which he cited as a success in his minimalist use of force doctrine? The Post editorial board recently explained, “Now Yemen appears in danger of disintegrating, as sectarian insurgents backed by Iran capture large parts of the country’s north, even while al-Qaeda forces surge in the south. Once again a narrowly focused U.S. engagement has helped make the breakdown possible.”

That brings us back to the war against the Islamic State. No boots on the ground was the first and predictable edict (although about 1,500 booted members of the U.S. military are currently in Iraq). The lack of success brought a win-some-lose-some attitude toward Kobane. But realizing that a major defeat and civilian massacre would send a deadly signal to Iraq, the Kurds and the Free Syrian Army and humiliate the United States, Obama stepped up bombing and now strives, still by air only, to prevent Kobane’s fall. And now a war premised on getting the help of locals on the ground in Syria risks failure because we won’t put our own troops in there to help.

After six years, the notion that soft power can be divorced from hard lies in rubble. The idea that if we really must resort to force to defend our interests we should use the least force (and the least effective force) has proved disastrous. Now it may lead to our inability to defeat a vicious foe.

Soft power fails – Ukraine proves that it’s too disconnected from government policy.

However, events in Ukraine have exposed the stark limits of soft power in a way that no analysis ever could. There is no small irony in the fact that Russia’s forceful military intervention into Ukraine was preceded by a grinding, if superficially velveted, tug of war between Moscow and the West over Ukraine’s integration with two competing soft-power “vehicles”—the EU and the Moscow-led Customs Union-cum-Eurasian Union. It was Yanukovych’s abandonment of Ukraine’s pledge to sign an Association Agreement with the EU—following intense Russian coercion—that protests began again in earnest. Yanukovych’s turn to brutality eventually precipitated his toppling, Russia’s military intervention, and now Crimea’s annexation.

Indeed, the truer currency of power remains the ability to coerce. Fatigue from disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan elevated expectations that soft power could supplant a beleaguered and overstretched U.S. military. Why, indeed, would the U.S. opt for coercion when civilizational persuasion could do the trick? Pro-West people power in Eurasia seemed to bolster the case for operationalized soft power after the “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Yet the longer-term results were unpredictable at best and disastrous at worst. Over time, it has become increasingly apparent that soft power is perhaps less an instrument to wield than a favorable wind at our backs.

Alt Causes

Alt causes to soft power decline – indifference towards international conflicts and human rights violations.

Karam 1/15 (Joyce Karam, Washington Correspondent for Al-Hayat Newspaper with a B.A. in Journalism and M.A. International Peace and Conflict Resolution, “Je suis unavailable: Obama and the decline of U.S. soft power,” Al Arabiya, January 15 2015, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2015/01/15/Je-suis-unavailable-Obama-and-the-decline-of-U-S-soft-power.html, *fc)

“Showing up is 80 percent of life” remarked filmmaker and writer Woody Allen in 1977, a quote that if taken to heart could have saved the Barack Obama administration lot of woes and embarrassment in the way it approaches policy and politics across the globe. Obama’s failure to show up or send the vice or an ex-president to Paris’ massive rally on Sunday in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech, vividly illustrates the decline of U.S. soft power and absence of American leadership on the global stage.

In a world marred with human rights violations, battles against authoritarianism whether in the form of oppressive governments or terrorist groups, the Obama administration is seen as a spectator whose indifference is coming at expense of U.S. stature and influence. Today in the Middle East, Washington has turned a blind eye to [ignored] grave human rights violations in almost every Arab country and Iran, limiting its role to no more than a negotiator, an arms provider, and a counterterrorism consultant. Even in Europe, where Obama declared to the people of Berlin in 2008 that “we are heirs to a struggle for freedom”, his words ring hollow against the surveillance activities of the administration and apathy to finding political solutions to conflicts endangering Europe’s security.

Cairo speech to ISIS

The irony in Obama’s no-show in Paris is it went unnoticed beyond Washington. Unfortunately, it has almost become a fait accompli around the world to expect very little from the Obama administration when it comes to addressing the defining challenges. From the Green movement in Iran to the Peace Process between the Israelis and the Palestinians, to Syria, Egypt, Libya and almost every struggle in the Middle East, the Obama administration has turned its back when push came to shove. Hitting ISIS by F-16s stationed on giant aircraft carriers in the region is the new definition of American power and influence.

Alt causes to soft power decline – militarized tactics, partisan splits.

Krzelj 4/6 (Karina Krzelj, International Relations Expert at nSight with a M.A. in International Relations and Affairs from Saint John’s University, “Current U.S. Foreign Policy is Further Eroding America’s Soft Power Abroad,” The Policy Tree, April 6 2015, http://thepolicytree.com/obamas-foreign-policy-is-further-eroding-americas-soft-power-abroad/, *fc)

The term “soft power” is anything but “soft”; it can be argued that it is one of the United States’ greatest achievements. Evidence of American culture can be seen in every corner of the globe, from bustling metropolises to remote villages. Placing politics aside and whether foreign governments welcome this permeation of American culture, the fact that one nation’s culture has the ability to touch the majority of the world’s inhabitants, even in the smallest of ways, is arguably the United States’ greatest foreign policy achievement.

Effectively beginning in the post-World War II era, the U.S. was able to implement a record number of foreign policy objectives, using its soft power as a spring board. Fast forward to the Obama administration and American soft power has all but been extinguished. The erosion of America’s soft power primarily began during the Bush administration; Obama’s presidential campaign preached a reversal to this downward slope of American influence abroad but seven years into his presidency, U.S. foreign policy under Obama has actually been aiding, not reversing, this decline of the U.S.’ most important weapon.

The role the United States has been playing in the international community is one in which it is largely using intimidation rather than inspiration. The bipartisan split in Congress is also not helping the situation with the passage of almost any budget related to foreign policy being hotly contested. Since the end of the Cold War, the State Department has lost approximately 20 percent of its overseas staff, which is in line with the shift of foreign policy towards “boots on the ground” and military involvement rather than long term country stabilization and humanitarian involvement. The extension of The Patriot Act, which was initially presented as temporary and necessary during the “war on terror”, is still being utilized and further highlights this shift. The acknowledgement that there will most likely be no peacetime as traditionally defined is also crucial in ending this foreign policy view. There are more conflicts and more refugees in the world today than ever before; therefore, the prevention of these conflicts should be the primary focus of American foreign policy. Reinvestment in agencies such as USAID and the State Department is essential in preventing these conflicts, but has currently taken a backseat to more militarized tactics. The root causes of the majority of current conflicts all have commonalities that can be addressed by using soft power approaches rather than using a “catch the terrorist” approach.

The political divide within the United States is also an impediment to cohesive and effective foreign policy. The Iran nuclear talks with P5+1 have thus far been successful, at least in coming to an initial agreement. Weighing upon American negotiators now is not only hatching out the finer details of the agreement, but how, if anyhow, they will sell this idea back home to win the support of Congress or at least persuade them to hold off sanctions legislation. The enormous gap on foreign policy views within one country is a uniquely American problem that it must solve. The United States cannot keep approaching foreign policy issues without a unified consensus as it is currently doing.

The moral authority of the United States abroad is dwindling at such a rate that many question whether any remains. It is in the interest of all Americans, regardless of political divide, that the United States acts upon the values it holds and preaches.

Can’t Solve Terror

Soft power can’t solve terror – allows ISIS to recruit and conquer more territory.

Thiessen 2/23 (Marc A. Thiessen, Author and political commentator with a B.A. from Vassar College, “Don’t just ‘counter’ violent extremists. Defeat them,” The Washington Post, 23 February 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-just-counter-violent-extremists-defeat-them/2015/02/23/dad3e52a-bb68-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html, *fc)

The White House just held a three-day summit exploring ways to “counter” violent extremists. It could have saved itself some time. The answer is simple:

Defeat them.

We know how to counter the radical ideology of the Islamic State because we have done it before — during the 2007 surge in Iraq. When President Obama took office, al-Qaeda in Iraq (which changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq during the surge) had been defeated militarily and ideologically. Militarily, it had been driven from its strongholds in Anbar and other Iraqi provinces, and its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been killed. This was more than just a military victory; it was an ideological victory as well. The terrorists had also suffered a massive rejection by the very Sunni masses they claimed to represent. Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaeda/the Islamic State rallied the Sunni masses to drive the United States out. Instead, the Sunni masses joined with the United States to drive the terrorists out. This was far more crippling than the simple loss of territory.

This military and ideological victory was squandered when Obama withdrew all U.S. forces from Iraq — a decision that allowed the Islamic State to regroup, reconstitute and reconquer the territory it had lost. If we want to re-defeat them — militarily and ideologically — we must learn from our past experiences and look at how the Islamic State recruits people to its cause.

The first way the Islamic State recruits is by not giving people a choice in the matter. When it conquers new territory, the Islamic State gives those living under its brutal rule two options: capitulate or die. For most, the choice between submission and beheading is a simple one. But we know from experience that most of those living under the Islamic State — where people have their fingers cut off for smoking, are executed for drinking and see their daughters forcibly married to foreign fighters — would gladly be rid of the terrorists. As we saw in 2007, once they have the security necessary to choose freely, the Sunnis rejected the Islamic State. If we want to see ordinary Muslims rise up and repudiate the Islamic State again, we must create conditions of security that make it safe for them to do so — just as we did during the surge.

The second way the Islamic State recruits is by creating the appearance that it is winning. Osama bin Laden was right when he declared that “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” Today, the Islamic State is seen as the strong horse in the Middle East. Our failure to reverse its military gains after six months of bombing has sent the message that the Islamic State is able to take the United States’ best punches and remain standing. The Islamic State draws attention to our impotence by releasing gruesome videos of beheadings and immolations, and its impunity helps it attract recruits from across the world. The way to counter this is not with new strategies for community organizing. It is for the United States to become the strong horse again — by defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield, driving it from its strongholds, capturing and interrogating its leaders. When the world sees the Islamic State retreating, and its leaders in orange jumpsuits boarding planes for Guantanamo Bay, it will know that the United States is the strong horse again — and suddenly the Islamic State’s ideology will lose its current sheen.

The third way the Islamic State recruits is by feeding on hopelessness in corrupt, autocratic societies. When people feel powerless to change their circumstance through peaceful, democratic means, they can become radicalized and attracted to violent ideologies. This is why President George W. Bush focused so much attention on what he called the “Freedom Agenda” — because to defeat a hateful ideology, we must offer a hopeful alternative.

The Obama administration was roundly mocked for suggesting that jobs and good governance are critical to countering violent ideologies. The fact is the administration is not wrong. But if we do not first defeat the Islamic State on the battlefield, and create conditions that make it safe for Muslims to reject the group’s violent ideology, then focusing on jobs and good governance is worse than meaningless.

Soft power is important. But soft power, when it is not backed by hard power, is just softness. And softness won’t defeat the Islamic State.

Negotiating with terrorists fail – they aren’t rational actors.

Furey 6/27 (Anthony Furey, Columnist for the Sun Media covering international affairs, “Diplomacy won't work on ISIS,” Toronto Sun, 27 June 2015, http://www.torontosun.com/2015/06/27/diplomacy-wont-work-on-isis, *fc)

**Modified for gendered language

Diplomacy. Dialogue. Negotiations. Compromise. Consensus building. When it comes to dealing with the Islamic State, these terms are meaningless. They just won't work.

Unfortunately United States President Barack Obama and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau both showed last week that they don't understand this important interplay between human nature and world affairs.

On Wednesday Obama announced a change to the policy governing how the U.S. deals with hostage-takers. While the U.S. still won't pay ransoms, he wanted to alter things so that the policy "does not prevent communication with hostage takers."

In other words, the U.S. can now negotiate with terrorists.

The day before, Trudeau appeared on the CBC program Power & Politics to explain that if elected PM he'd end the combat portion of Canada's fight against the Islamic State.

When pressed to state his preferred alternatives to combat, he included: “I truly believe that Canada has a tremendous role to play on the world stage -- including with our military -- but also around development and diplomacy."

Diplomacy? Development? Let's try to square these otherwise lovely and noble concepts with the news that made headlines on Friday: the three terrorist attacks that rocked the world.

In Tunisia, dozens of tourists were gunned down on a beach. These included people from Tunisia, Britain, Germany, Belgium and Ireland. All they were doing was what people do on the beach - swimming, tanning, playing.

In France, a man was decapitated at a gas plant by another man police believe was one of the employees. When firefighters arrived at the scene they found the man trying to open canisters, presumably to create an explosion. Prosecutors have revealed that alongside the decapitated head was a profession of Islamic faith written in Arabic on two flags.

In Kuwait dozens of people were killed and 200 wounded in a suicide attack at a Shiite mosque during Friday prayers. An Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack. Why did they attack other Muslims? Because they won't even tolerate sectarian divisions within their own religion. They're hardline Sunni, so the lives of Shiites are fair game for their campaign of total submission.

The motivation for the first attack is still unclear, but the other week an Islamic State spokesperson called on followers to increase their attacks during this month of Ramadan. These are the types of people we're dealing with. While most people use religious or civic holidays to deliver treats to their neighbours, these guys [people] deliver bullets and bombs.

The world needs to be clear on one thing: These people are not rational actors. The caliphate, currently "celebrating" its first anniversary, has world domination as its goal.

Sound crazy? You're right. It is. But it's still real. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wants to rule the world. This is not a group of fair-minded individuals who have modest requests that can be resolved through dialogue. They're not "freedom-fighter" terrorists who will go away if you give them a small plot of land or let their uncle out of jail.

There is no diplomatic solution to be had with a group whose endgame is religious supremacy or global domination. Diplomacy and negotiations (also known as appeasement) clearly didn't work when dealing with Adolf Hitler. Nor does it have any place in a conversation about the Islamic State.

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