For weeks, Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, has watched United States military engagement in Iraq with quiet unease: Democrats and Republicans warily backed President Barack Obama's limited air strikes against Sunni militants, but nobody – aside from senator John McCain and a few fellow hawks – demonstrated an appetite for deeper involvement.
Now, though, the gruesome killing of American journalist James Foley has drawn a raw, emotional reaction from lawmakers in both parties, with many issuing statements condemning Islamic State, the group also known as Isis which was responsible for Foley's killing, and some urging Obama to redouble the fight against it.
There were signs this week that the Obama administration was weighing that, with the White House and the Pentagon refusing to rule out military action against the group in Syria. But far from satisfying Congress, a wider conflict could put lawmakers, particularly Democrats, in a difficult position, since most deeply oppose any new war in the Middle East.
"Most Democrats and Republicans are extraordinarily wary of being sucked into a large occupation, both because it will kill a lot of Americans and because we saw in Iraq the last time that it didn't work," said Democratic Congressman Adam B Schiff, a member of the House permanent select committee on intelligence (HPSCI).
‘Monstrous group’
Schiff was among those who expressed horror at Foley’s killing, saying: “Seldom is the descriptor ‘evil’ applied with perfect accuracy as it is with this monstrous group.” His fellow California Democrat, senator
Dianne Feinstein
, has called for “co-ordinated and sustained action” to defeat the militants. “Only then can we reverse Isil’s rise and eliminate this very dangerous terrorist threat,” she said, using an alternative name for Islamic State.
A growing number of Republicans are criticising Obama for not doing more. Republican senator Marco Rubio, said: "President Obama continues to appear unwilling to do what is necessary to confront Isil and communicate clearly to the American people about the threat Isil poses to our country and to our way of life."
Republican Mike Pompeo, a member of HPSCI, said: "The president's current path of action has been far too limited to make a difference. We must do what is necessary to eliminate Isis, protect the innocent, and keep Americans safe."
Politically fraught
But few of these Republicans have laid out exactly what they want Obama to do to intensify the battle. Even conducting air strikes in Syria would be a politically fraught step. The last time the president sought to put military action in Syria to a congressional vote
– a missile strike after Syria’s chemical weapons attacks last year – he faced an overwhelming defeat that he avoided only by seizing on an alternative Russian diplomatic proposal.
Little has changed in Congress since, even if a vote to use military action in response to an attack on Americans would naturally draw more support than intervening in a distant civil war.
"This horrendous event has got a lot of folks in Congress talking," Democratic member of the House Peter Welch said of Foley's killing, "but it doesn't give us a licence to ignore the lessons of George W Bush in Iraq."
Schiff said he was concerned that the White House had already broadened the mission beyond the limited purposes outlined by Obama two weeks ago – conducting air strikes to support Iraqi forces in recapturing the Mosul Dam, for example. On Thursday, a day after disclosing that the Pentagon had mounted a fruitless rescue operation in Syria for Foley and other US hostages, the White House indicated it would not rule out further military action in Syria if there was a threat to Americans.
"We would not restrict ourselves by geographic boundaries when it comes to the core mission of US foreign policy, which is the protection of our people," said deputy national security adviser Benjamin J Rhodes.
Some Republicans aimed their fire at the administration’s disclosure of the raid. McCain suggested the White House was trying to reap credit for helping the hostages, while Howard McKeon of California, chairman of the House armed services committee, called for an investigation into who leaked it.
Even before Foley’s killing, some analysts argued the drumbeat of criticism from neoconservatives had accelerated the momentum towards military action, as evidenced by Obama’s decision last month to send 300 military advisers to Iraq.
“Obama himself is pretty good in resisting those pressures, but not completely,” said Stephen M Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard’s John F Kennedy School.
For his part, the president did not signal a shift in his strategy, even as he condemned the militants who killed Foley for having no “ideology of any value to human beings”.
“The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people,” Obama said. “We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.”
Murderous intent
Analysts said that while Foley’s death dramatised the murderous intent of the militants – and brought the conflict much closer to home than a threat to an unfamiliar religious minority such as the Yazidis – it did not remove the hurdles to a more widespread military campaign.
“I just don’t see it rising to a casus belli – or at least as a cause for a much larger military effort,” said Kenneth M Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It is awful and it should remind us of who we are dealing with, and not have any illusions about that. But the political and military realities of Iraq and Syria remain unchanged.”
Those realities, Pollack said, are that the US needs a reliable military partner in Iraq, a development that is not likely to occur without a new national government that surmounts the country’s sectarian rifts. In Syria, where Obama has grudgingly provided nonlethal aid to moderate rebels but otherwise avoided military intervention, it would require a fundamental shift to a strategy he has followed for two years.
"I don't think Barack Obama is going to shift gears despite bipartisan demands," Pollack said, "and I am not convinced that the Foley killing is a reason to do so." – (New York Times service)
