At the Aspen Security Forum on Friday, General Martin E. Dempsey opened his remarks with a joke: “Some of you in the audience have been kind enough to invite me [to the Aspen Security Forum] four years in a row, but I wanted to wait until things calmed down before I came.”
This was, of course, a reference to the many crises playing out across the globe. With Lesley Stahl moderating, General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed almost every major strategic issue in the world that concerns the United States, with special focus on the crises in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine. His remarks (transcript here) were lucid and engaging.
General Dempsey’s remarks on Iraq were particularly interesting and I quote them here as they represent, I think, the first open acknowledgment by a senior official that Iraq may not survive as a unified political entity. He advanced, in the strongest terms we’ve seen so far, President Obama’s position that the onus is on Baghdad to pursue a more inclusive polity. And he was willing to broach the possibility that it might not happen and that Iraq might not survive. He also discusses how the U.S. military is viewing the ISIL problem strategically:
DEMPSEY: ISIL has some longer term objectives that we should acknowledge and we should take the longer view on how to deny them those objectives. The immediate task is to determine whether Iraq has a political future. Because if Iraq has a political future then we will work through Iraq among others to deal with the ISIL threat. If Iraq does not have a political future, as an inclusive unity government, then we’re going to have to find other partners. To take-
STAHL: Are you talking militarily?
DEMPSEY: I’m talking — well, I mean, it’s pretty hard to discuss military options devoid of policy decisions at this point. What I’m talking about is a — is a strategy that initially assesses — tries to better understand the threat, assesses that which exists or remains that can either contain it and degrade it, and what that force might need if it were to try to defeat ISIL, to work on the periphery, to squeeze this thing from as many directions as possible. And, you know, to precipitously, if you will, take military action might gain some tactical advantage, frankly, but it wouldn’t do much for us to build the kind of strategy that I think we need.
STAHL: Is the United States government, military totally committed to destroying ISIS?
DEMPSEY: Let me speak for the United States military. The United States military does consider ISIL a threat to — initially to the region and our close allies, longer term to the United States of America, and therefore we are preparing a strategy that has a series of options to present to our elected leaders on how we can initially contain, eventually disrupt and finally defeat ISIL over time.
Later, doing the Q&A, General Dempsey got into more detail:
DEMPSEY: if we get a credible partner, then — meaning in the Iraqi government that commits to trying to become much more inclusive than they have been up till now, then I think we can do any number of things. We can try to help restore the capability and readiness of the Iraqi security forces so that at some point they can begin to regain some lost territory. We can — in that process, we could put advisory teams forward with them. We know how to do that. We do it in Africa frequently. We do it in Yemen. We’ve done it in Somalia, where we can put advisers on the ground who know how to go far enough forward to provide intelligence, to provide planning expertise, to use close-air support if we take a decision to provide close-air support. We can target. If ISIL becomes a threat to this country, clearly we would have the — (coughs) — pardon me — the capability to deal with it.
But look, those are, that’s a, there’s kind of bins out there, bins of, bins of possibility that we might employ if we can find a strategy with partners to execute it.
But we haven’t actually come to that point. We’re still very much in the development of those options. And I think that’s the place we really ought to be right now.
See also:
- Our interview with General Dempsey.
- Our recent commentary on Iraq.
- Our recent commentary of ISIL.
Ryan Evans is the editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks.
Image: U.S. Army
bb3 
Stahl tries to get Dempsey to square his ‘urgency’ views with his/ the administration’s ‘let’s see how this plays out approach. Yeah – multiple times he suggests that Iraq could make a great partner if it can form a truly inclusive gov’t and get the moderate sunnis and moderate shia (like these groups exist) to work with the Kurds to thwart the Islamic State. Seriously – this is a real strategy as opposed to more than wishful thinking – what a joke – let me clue you in – it ain’t gonna happen. So Stahl could have pressed Dempsey to articulate his Plan B. How can the Kurds and Turkey not be part of the plan? I find it a joke that all this is happening on Turkey’s border and our NATO ally does nothing but allow supplies/ weapons etc to flow freely and injured IS parties to get medical treatment.
The US needs to support both the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds – by supplying them with weapons and air support. If the US doesn’t want to provide air support they need to provide the Kurds with the same COIN aircraft they are buying for the Afghanis . Of course it will take some time to train and equip a Kurdish air arm – in the meantime the US has to step up. The Kurds can be counted on; the Kurds will fight and not turn and run and the KRG can even pay for the stuff if the US will simply support them in selling their oil.
The US needs to pressure Turkey to close its border with IS and ideally provide military and air support to the Syrian Kurds. The Free Syrian Army has no base or border and the risk of them folding and having the supplied weapons fall into IS’ hands is too great.
The US also has 5000 combat ready contracters currently in Iraq – that’s a force that – together with US air and special ops support – could hit IS hard in its rear – Raqqa for example – more realistically – the conveys of fighters & supplies flowing to and from Raqqa to the other areas that IS is trying to advance into – like Rojava and the Syrian gas and oil fields and the Iraqi/Syrian border crossings etc.
These operations don’t necessarily need to recapture and hold cities and territory – they just need to inflict some severe pain on IS. As Dempsey notes – IS is getting a lot of support just because it’s winning. Some of the jihaddis will rethink their allegiance and some of the opposition will be emboldened – if IS suffers some significant set backs.
Look – these guys are travelling by trucks etc in the open desert and their logistical lines are easily attacked from the air. They can be hit hard from the rear when they make thrusts towards there new objectives and they can be hit again as they seek to reinforce and/or supply their offensive operations and when they retreat from these objectives. The very mobile special op and mercenary forces can coordinate with FSA and Kurds and then retreat to Irbil, Rojava and/or Turkey till the next objective. If Turkey closes its borders and air power cuts off the flow of arms, manpower and supplies from current IS strongholds – IS loses tons of influence and effectiveness and all the opposition forces are empowered and emboldened – even the seemingly ineffective Iraqi armed forces.
Of course Leslie Stahl didn’t press Dempsey on these issues. She should have said – ‘well let’s assume that the dream of a unified and inclusive Iraq doesn’t magically appear over the next 45 days general – what’s plan B? What about getting Turkey involved and what about supporting the Kurds to the extent that they can have sufficient and credible defensive and at least limited offensive capabilities. I’d think Dempsey would agree that we want safe bases of operation in Turkey and Kurd controlled areas – and if they fear offensive operations vs those areas – they become safe refuges for attacking/containment forces and IS becomes vulnerable to Assad’s forces/ other Sunni forces (in both Syria and Iraq) & Maliki’s forces – in addition to the highly mobile, fast reacting offensive forces (comprised of mercenaries and special ops forces) that coordinate with other static forces and keep hitting IS from the air and in certain limited surprise strategic attacks.
IS has shown that it does well when it gets to plan and carry out surprise offensive strikes – but my guess is that it isn’t prepared for the same thing happening to them. Certainly IS has to be very vulnerable from a supply and logistics standpoint – so if it can’t move freely and has to defend its flanks – IS is going to greatly compromised.
How’s about pressing Dempsey for some comments on this hypothetical plan of engagement – that doesn’t involve getting into bed with Tehran or Assad and doesn’t assume that Maliki will suddenly become George Washington.