Young hearts and minds are always looking to the future, especially when children are involved. Al Bagdadi took those hearts and minds and contorted them in a way that can only be explained as charismatic.
President Obama came forward to lead an initiative to end the charismatic movement within Daesh as well as a military front to end the advancing forces of al Bagdadi.
Sometimes a truth spoken resonates so organically (click here) that it prompts a collective sigh of relief from its listeners—relief that someone has emerged from the crowd to suggest a path forward, allowing us all to shift our footing from collective outrage to collective action. That is the essence of the story behind U.S. leadership of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
During the first six months of 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) made a dramatic debut on the world stage by capturing a wide swath of Syria and Iraq. It rolled seemingly without resistance through Fallujah, Raqqa, Tikrit and Mosul, even threatening the gates of Baghdad, before announcing the establishment of a caliphate (Islamic state) and declaring Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as caliph—the successor to the Prophet Mohammed.
The speed of the advance, the confidence portrayed through their polished media arm, and the stories that emerged about the horrors of life under ISIS and the persecution of innocents shocked and horrified the world. In August 2014, President Barack Obama ordered air strikes to prevent the fall of the Kurdish city of Erbil and to break the group’s siege on Mount Sinjar, where thousands of ethnic Yazidis had fled after being threatened with genocide. Between Aug. 19 and Sept. 2 of that year, the world witnessed the brutal beheading of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff at the hands of “Jihadi John”—executions that were as carefully captured on film by ISIS media as the take of a Hollywood movie.
On Sept. 10, 2014, President Obama addressed the nation to declare that the fight against ISIS was our fight, but “not our fight alone.” American power could make a difference, he noted, but Iraq and our other partners in the region would need to be front and center in the effort. He then announced “that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back” ISIS.
The campaign would seek to “degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” This would include airstrikes and other support for forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria. The campaign would go after ISIS funding, interrupt the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria, and discredit the militants’ ideology. It would also intensify our intelligence gathering against the terrorist group and supply humanitarian assistance to those displaced by ISIS.
Concluding his address, President Obama said, “This is American leadership at its best: We stand with people who fight for their own freedom, and we rally other nations on behalf of our common security and common humanity.”...
