Mitch Perry
The Obama administration’s announcement last week that it is sending 450 military advisers to Anbar province to support Iraqi forces fighting ISIS has been met with a lot of skepticism in Washington, and not just among Republicans.
“The thing that concerns me most is having a clear cut strategy to defeat this threat called ISIS or Islamic extremism,” says Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who served two tours of duty in Iraq and Kuwait with the U.S. National Guard in the late aughts.
Speaking to FloridaPolitics.com on Saturday afternoon after wrapping up a press conference with Florida Democratic Party chair Allison Tant, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Virginia Senator Mark Warner in Hollywood, Gabbard made it clear that she doesn’t believe the White House is addressing the core reasons why ISIS exists in Iraq today.
“Right now you have a situation where you have the administration supporting the Shia government in Baghdad, heavily influenced by Iran, working with these Shia militia, who are going out and blatantly oppressing and persecuting Sunni communities and territories. This has created the oxygen for ISIS to exist in Iraq today, because you have these non-ISIS Sunni tribes who really feel that they have nowhere else to go. Every territory, every piece of Iraq that ISIS holds is Sunni territory. So the fact that this sectarian issue is not being addressed, is creating the oxygen for ISIS to exist.”
Gabbard is advocating a strategy of providing support for the Kurdish forces in the north, as well as non-ISIS Sunni tribes in Iraq who she says haven’t been motivated to stand up for their own country.
She also subscribes to the idea promulgated years ago by Vice President Joe Biden that Iraq should ultimately be carved up with three different autonomous states, with Shia, Sunnis and the Kurds having their own homeland. Although Biden’s theory was mocked widely a decade ago by so-called foreign policy experts, more and more of them seem to indicate that isn’t the worst strategy possible.
“It’s not up to us to figure out, it’s up to them to figure out, but basically empower the Kurds, the Sunni’s and the Shia, otherwise it is a fantasy to think that these Sunni tribes will somehow trust this Shia-led government in Baghdad,” Gabbard says, referring to reports on how some Sunni families trying to escape persecution by ISIS were being thwarted from escaping.
Gabbard has been outspoken in criticizing President Obama for refusing to use the term “Islamic terrorism,” a critique uttered by many a Republican presidential candidate in 2015. She says it’s a basic issue that she takes from the perspective of being a soldier.
“You have to identify and know you are enemy is, and know what motivates them in order to come up with an effective strategy to defeat them. If you don’t take that important step first, you can’t expect that you’ll have a winning strategy and be able to defeat them,” she maintains.
“This is not a war that can be won simply by dropping bombs,” she adds. “You look at this ideology that is not the common thread between each of these terrorist groups, they’re all motivated by this same radical ideology and until you have a military strategy, a strategy to defeat their ideology and a strategy to affect political change as I am advocating for in Iraq to deal with the sectarian division, then we’re not going to see the results and a defeat that must take place for this enemy.”
This reporter also asked Senator Warner his thoughts on the Obama administration’s strategy to degrade ISIS. He was less forthcoming and more contemplative in trying to say the right words.
“I think it’s appropriate,” he says of the decision to add additional advisers to the region. “But we are going to have to see more active and active fighting from the Iraqi armed forces themselves and less of a sectarian attitude from the Iraqi government, and that’s why our government’s patience is wearing thin.”
Warner and Gabbard spoke later Saturday night at the Florida Democratic Party’s Leadership Blue Gala that was attended by more than 1,200 party members in Hollywood.
