Syria Strike: Obama Positioning National Security Above All Kinds of Grand Standing Rhetoric

The Pentagon officials have described the U.S. led air strikes in Syria as a successful opening towards a long-term campaign. The logic of Syria strike was strewn across President Obama's address at the UN General assembly on Wednesday. The President made it unambiguously clear that the coalition of countries taking on ISIS is going to "dismantle this network of death", reported Telegraph.

Obama said: "Neither any God condones this terror nor a grievance justifies these actions. There is no negotiation with this brand of evil. The only language killers understand is the language of force. The United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death. Obama then called up the world to join this effort.

End of Paradox

The Washington Post analysed how the presidency of Obama had imposed constraints on U.S. counterterrorism operations. But the President's launch of a broad military offensive against Islamist groups in Syria, dismantled such voluntary curbs. One was the airstrikes in Syria being targeted on a militant group, the Islamic State, which was different from unlike al-Qaeda and never expressed an outright plan of attacking the United States. But that pre-emptive strike looked very strategic.

The U.S. air campaign used weapons that fully flattened targets negating Obama's doctrine of use of force being in "near certainty" that no civilians are killed. But Syria saw the free play of deadly 3,000-pound Tomahawk missiles. The fury of the first assault on Syria put the United States on a different trajectory, from what Obama had envisioned last year. It was last year, Obama described the security landscape of US as having returned to pre-Sept. 11 normalcy.

In May 2013, addressing the National Defence University, President Obama called for "respect for sovereignty." But in the action against Syria, those words were taken back!. But Jack Goldsmith, a former Justice Department official in the Bush administration, sees such contradictions as quite natural. In his view, such outcomes are part of the Presidential job. The lines that Obama drew on the sand as high principles of his presidency are getting crossed now.

Role of Allies

But advisers of Obama administration dispute this paradox of words and actions. The Washington Post report quotes them saying that the unfolding offensive in Syria is in line with President's broader objectives to keep U.S. forces out of ground wars and involve more foreign allies to confront overseas threats. Most importantly, Obama wants the use of lethal U.S. capabilities only as a last resort.