Obama hit with barrage over failure to thwart Isis

Analysts have faulted Obama for not heeding intelligence suggesting that radical Islamist fighters were becoming the dominant resistance force in Syria. Photo / AP

President insists plan to shrink extremists’ territory and end war in Syria will work.

The carnage of the Paris attacks and the largely stalemated war in Iraq and Syria have prompted heavy criticism of US President Barack Obama's handling of the fight against Isis (Islamic State) over the past three years.

The questions came in waves at the Group of 20 summit in Antalya, Turkey: Hadn't Obama underestimated the threat posed by Isis? Wasn't it time for a new and more aggressive attack plan? Did he really understand the group well enough to defeat it and protect the United States?

"All right," Obama replied to the last question, his tone betraying utter indignation. "So this is a variation on the same question . . . Let me try it one last time."

In response to each of the questions posed by reporters, Obama made his case for a campaign that seeks to gradually shrink Isis' territory in Iraq and Syria with airstrikes, build up indigenous ground forces and press for renewed diplomatic negotiations to end Syria's civil war.

The questions reflected concerns following the Paris attacks - which killed 129 people - that Obama had missed opportunities to defeat the group when it was gaining strength.

Now Obama is in the unenviable position of championing a strategy that even he admits could take years to work, and could be marked by significant setbacks and more terrorist attacks like those in Paris.

The story of how Obama landed on his approach is one of a President who campaigned for re-election on a promise to end America's wars and came to office with other pressing priorities, such as reaching an agreement that would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

He was sceptical that US military power could produce lasting political change in the Middle East and heavily influenced by the steep costs and heavy casualties that America suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the early days of the Syrian civil war, Obama rejected proposals from his top national security advisers at the time, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus, to arm rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's Government.

To Obama, the rebels were a collection of "former doctors, farmers, [and] pharmacists" facing off against a well-equipped Syrian military that also had the support of battle-hardened Hizbollah forces. Early proposals for a no-fly zone that would have grounded Assad's attack aircraft were also dismissed as too costly.

Today, some analysts say Obama underestimated the moderate Syrian forces that were massing against Assad and that they might have been able to pick up support from defecting Syrian military troops if they had shown early success.

Other analysts have faulted Obama for not heeding intelligence suggesting that radical Islamist fighters were becoming the dominant resistance force in Syria.

Senior White House officials have countered that the President's critics vastly overestimate the capacity of American military power to stem chaos caused by decades of misrule and the collapse of repressive governments throughout the Middle East.

To illustrate that point, Obama yesterday described the problems of establishing a safe area for moderate rebels in northern Syria. "Would it become a magnet for terrorist attacks, and how many personnel would be required" to safeguard it, he asked, and most pointedly, "How it would end?"

- Washington Post - Bloomberg