Obama's ISIS failure

A more definitive, aggressive, and immediate strategy against the Islamic State would offer Americans a point of unity, resolve, and agency that's conspicuously lacking elsewhere

President Obama could have looked at the Islamic State problem from a different perspective.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

President Obama's foreign policy has been a crushing disappointment. Whereas his first term earned the U.S. precious breathing room in its pivot from the Bush years, wiping out the GOP's storied electoral advantage on international affairs, Obama's second term has been marked by failure after failure: chaos in Syria, Libya, and Yemen; the rise of ISIS; Russia on the march; and on and on.

The president's defenders might counter that, at worst, these failures have been modest and contained. After all, we haven't gone to war with a major or regional power, and we haven't lost a military battle. Technically, ISIS is in retreat, not just in the Fertile Crescent but in Libya, too. What's not to like?

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James Poulos

James Poulos is a contributing editor at National Affairs and the author of The Art of Being Free, out January 17 from St. Martin's Press. He has written on freedom and the politics of the future for publications ranging from The Federalist to Foreign Policy and from Good to Vice. He fronts the band Night Years in Los Angeles, where he lives with his son.