Obama will ask Congress to authorize action against ISIS

If you can make sense of President Obama's constantly changing stance on ISIS and the need to fight against them - not to mention the legal and strategic details of how to do it - let us know.

First he said they were merely Al Qaeda's JV team and no one needed to be concerned. Then they started over running Iraq and he said, well, OK, maybe we could bomb them from the air, but under no circumstances would the U.S. put boots on the ground to fight them. Oh, and he didn't need to ask Congress to authorize this because they already authorized it - when George W. Bush asked them more than a decade earlier (an authorization he opposed, by the way). Then Al Qaeda released a series of videos in which they brutally beheaded prisoners, culminating on Monday the horrific video that showed them burning a captured Turkish pilot alive in a tiny cage. Obama's response to that? At first, he said hey, if the video is genuine, we're going to "degrade" them. Seriously. That's what he said. Then he went to the National Prayer Breakfast and reminded us all that Christians are no better than ISIS because hey, the Crusades. Meanwhile, over in Jordan, the Jordanians are unleashing hellfire on ISIS the likes of which we have rarely seen of late, and even King Abdullah himself is strapping on the flight suit and threatening to personally fly sorties. ISIS needs to be afraid now, said Congressman Duncan Hunter, because "King Abdullah is not Barack Obama." Uh oh. Suddenly every option is on the table for Obama, even ground troops, and even asking Congress to authorize the operation:

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The developments come after Islamic militants released a grisly video of the murder of a Jordanian Air Force pilot by burning him alive. Pelosi also said that the U.S. should "move quickly" to steer military aid to Jordan, which has begun a stepped-up campaign against the militants, including a series of air strikes in Syria. Republicans generally want a broader authorization of military action against the militants, who have overrun wide swaths of Iraq and Syria, than Democrats have been willing to consider. Obama has said he does not intend to have U.S. "boots on the ground" in combat roles, while many Republicans believe that option ought to be available to the military. Secretary of State John Kerry has testified that any new authorization should not limit U.S. military action to just Iraq and Syria or prevent the president from deploying ground troops if he later deems them necessary. Kerry also said that if the new authorization has a time limit, there should be a provision for it to be renewed. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House intelligence panel, has already introduced legislation rather than wait for Obama's version. His bill would authorize the use of force against ISIS in Iraq and Syria for three years, but prohibit the use of ground forces in a combat mission in either nation. He has said if the president later decided to deploy ground troops, he could return to Congress to ask for new authority.

It's weird agreeing with John Kerry. Makes me want to take a shower. But he's right that Congress needs to authorize this without the restrictions Schiff is trying to put in place. You can't defeat an enemy - particularly one as brutal as ISIS - if you tie your own hands by establishing up front that you won't go certain places or fight in certain ways. That's what caused us so much trouble in Vietnam. It gives them safe places to hide and allows them a lot more strategic options. But in a way it's hard to blame Democrats for wanting the very same restrictions that Obama himself insisted were necessarly only a few months ago. Obama clearly didn't want to fight this fight and I don't even think he wants to fight it now. He just sees that he looks like a complete wimp standing by and doing next to nothing while the Jordanians bomb the living crap out of ISIS because it's clear that it simply must be done. And as usual, there is no consistency to the legal arguments Obama makes. It's just like with ObamaCare. Is it a mandate or a tax? Depends which stance works better for him politically? Does he need authorization or doesn't he? And why ask for it now? My guess is that he thinks it's more worth his while now to pick a fight with congressional Republicans because the burning video has people up in arms and clamoring for action against ISIS - and Obama looks weak at the moment because he hasn't shown much interest in doing anything. In other words, he looks weak because he is weak. So asking for authorization now lets him win either way, because he can either get what he asks for or he can put Congress in the same position he's in now, and claim that by refusing they show themselves to be just as weak. I hope congressional Republicans don't play this stupidly. They should absolutely grill the administration about why they've dithered to date, but we need to take this action and Congress would be right to authorize it - and yes, that includes the deployment of ground forces because it makes no sense to leave any option off the table. ISIS needs to be obliterated, and that will happen much more completely and efficiently if the United States exercises leadership - a rare thing in the Obama years, but maybe the brutality of ISIS has finally gone so far that even Obama can't keep refusing to lead.