Are Obama’s Libya Strikes Helping to Defeat ISIS?

Parallax News presents big issues broken down into multiple perspectives. This brief looks at 3 different perspectives on recent U.S. strikes in Libya.

Since the U.S. helped overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has lacked a strong central government. Power has been exerted at the local level by rival militias. In the last two years, it has become a major ISIS breeding ground. The Washington Post reported this week that U.S. Special Operations forces were taking part in ground operations in Libya, supporting local fighters against ISIS. The revelation comes just days after a renewed American airstrike campaign was launched in the North African country. The military actions are primarily meant to help forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) gain full control of Sirte, which has been ISIS’s headquarters in Northern Africa since early 2015.

I. Barack Obama

President Obama formally answered the call of the GNA for aerial support on August 1. Obama believes U.S. airstrikes and limited ground support may tip the scales against ISIS. Apart from the obvious terror threat posed by ISIS, Obama says the U.S. and its allies, “have a great interest in seeing stability in Libya because the absence of stability has helped to fuel some of the challenges that we’ve seen in terms of the migration crisis in Europe and some of the humanitarian tragedies that we’ve seen in the open seas between Libya and Europe.” Obama’s actions, authorized by a post-9/11 congressional resolution, have apparently helped Libya make strategic gains. As of Wednesday, the local forces claimed to have taken control of ISIS’s headquarters in Sirte.

II. Jason Pack

Jason Pack is the president of the Libya-Analysis® consultancy and founder of EyeOnISISinLibya.com. Pack is not entirely opposed to U.S. involvement in Libya, but he believes that the phasing of the current military operations is flawed. He is worried that U.S. bombings could exacerbate existing political divisions, further inhibiting the formation of a genuine unity government. Although an airstrike campaign aimed at the remaining ISIS commanders in Sirte may conclusively drive them out of the city, that does not mean that ISIS is defeated in Libya. Pack likens this to a doctor treating symptoms without curing the underlying disease. As long as Libya remains without political order, Pack says, ISIS and other jihadi actors will take advantage of the vacuum and use the country as a base from which to train, recruit, and plan attacks.

III. Tim Kaine

Senator Tim Kaine (D — Va.) is Hillary Clinton’s running mate. One area where the two disagree is on President Obama’s authority for military actions against ISIS in Libya and elsewhere. Kaine believes Obama lacks a proper blessing from Congress, as defined in Article I of the Constitution, for engaging in combat operations — the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Kaine dismisses Obama’s claim that the 2001 AUMF applies to ISIS. That AUMF gives the president the power to go to war with any group responsible for the 9/11 attacks, which were committed well before ISIS came into existence. Kaine has attempted to pass legislation that would replace the current AUMF with an updated version that imposes clear limits on presidential war powers and specifies the fight against ISIS.

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Further Reading: Reuters / Washington Post / CNN

This brief was written by Jared Metzker.

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