PRESIDENT OBAMA faced a monumental test at the United Nations on Wednesday. He had to show that he respects international law and the UN, even as he tiptoes around both by expanding an air campaign against Islamic State militants into Syria, without permission from the Syrian government or a UN resolution.
For the time being, he is pulling off this balancing act. Global opinion is alarmed enough over Islamic State, the militant group also known by the acronym ISIS, that Obama will get some deference as he seeks to contain it. He took the extraordinary step of chairing a Security Council summit, something no other US president has ever done. At the meeting, he presided over the unanimous passage of a Security Council resolution that commits UN member states to help stop the flow of foreign fighters and funding to Syria from their territories.
And, fundamentally, Obama’s approach reflects a sound effort to contain ISIS and damage its aggressive capabilities amid difficult political and logistical constraints. Domestically, he faces pressure in Congress to escalate military action against ISIS but also significant public unease about deeper engagement in the region. And in practice, his plan to use US air cover in concert with Sunni Arab governments and groups on the ground is the least objectionable of many bad options.
As the president spoke, the US government released a flurry of announcements about other incremental steps it is taking to battle the extremists, including a Treasury Department announcement of 11 individuals sanctioned for terrorism and the formation of a special program with Interpol that will help countries share information about foreign fighters.
The strategy fits in with Obama’s bigger goal: to convince Americans and the world that standing up to ISIS need not involve another US ground war in the Middle East. At the UN General Assembly, he pledged that the United States “will neither tolerate terrorist safe-havens nor act as an occupying power” — a poetic way of describing his policy of assassinating terrorists with drones and airstrikes, without putting US boots on the ground.
Still, there are obvious hazards. The resolution did not bless the US-led military action in Syria, which Russia — a veto-wielding member of the Security Council — has insisted must be done in coordination with Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom Obama has called upon to leave power. Moreover, limited military engagements can be just as problematic as lengthy ones; Libya, for example, has descended into chaos in the wake of NATO bombings that removed Moammar Khadafy.