War of the Words: Thesis on the representation of the Islamic State by the Obama administration

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War of the Words

Thesis on the representation of the Islamic State by the

Obama administration

Frank Kleef

University of Amsterdam

Supervisor: dhr. prof. dr. R.V.A. (Ruud) Janssens

Student no.: 10547045

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Abstract

The Obama administration used a strategy that actively sought to delegitimize the enemy in order to pursue its efforts to counter the Islamic State and portrayed it as a manifestation of evil. In this thesis I intend to argue that by representing the effort to degrade and ultimately destroy the Islamic State as a conflict between freedom and evil, the Obama administration utilized a very idealistic rhetorical framework. Problematically, the approach taken by the Obama administration to counter the Islamic State really had more to do with the United States itself than the Islamic State, the alleged object of the conflict. Although Obama was frequently lauded for deviating from the rhetorical idealism of the Bush administration, analysis shows that the rhetoric of the Obama administration only changed in style rather than in substance. This thesis aims to contribute to the current academic discourse considering the general reflection on the Obama administration. More specifically, about its Middle East policy and its comprehensive effort to counter the Islamic State. Consequently, it remarks on the problematic approach with which the Obama administration sought to react to the situation in the Middle East and the Islamic State. By doing so, I intend to contribute to the understanding of the Western discourse in order to improve its reaction to out-group crises.

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Introduction

Addressing the leaders of a multitude of predominantly Muslim countries in Saudi Arabia on 21 May 2017, President Donald J. Trump argued that the global struggle against terrorism is “a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it. This is a battle between Good and Evil.”1 In this speech, Trump seemed to echo the rhetorical style adopted by George W. Bush, who frequently likened those committing terrorist actions to evil during his presidency. President Barack H. Obama aimed to deviate from such rhetoric and instead tried to play down the threat. After the Islamic State captured the city of Fallujah in January 2014, he likened the Islamic State, primary object of the American campaign during his second term to counter terrorism, a “Junior Varsity Team.”2 Obama claimed this at a very early stage in the insurgency of the Islamic State. Over the course of his presidency and as the Islamic State grew rapidly, Obama rarely deviated from this rhetoric of downplaying the threat. Yet, only three days after 128 came to perish in the terrorist attacks on the evening of November 13th_{, 2015, he stated that “ISIL is the face of evil” at the G20}

Summit in Turkey. 3

Obama seldom issued such obviously idealism-infused statements, which would credit the struggle against the Islamic State with epic importance and a recruitment tool for the Islamic State. Generally, the discourse his administration seems to have used was more subtle than the statements. Obama frequently stated that he intended to abandon the idealism-infused approach to the Global War on Terror, predominantly present in the rhetoric of his predecessor, during

1_{The White House. “President Trump’s Speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit.” Whitehouse.gov.}

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/21/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

2_{Remnick, D., ‘Going the Distance: On and off the road with Barack Obama’, The New Yorker (27 January}

2014) (05-06-2017).

3_{Garunay, M., ‘President Obama at the G-20 Summit: We Are United Against This Threat.’}

Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/16/president-obama-g-20-summit-we-are-united-against-threat (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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the campaign for the presidential elections of 2008 and early in his first term as President of the United States. Analysts like Ryan Lizza, at The New Yorker, argued in his article “The Consequentialist” that Obama was a not an idealist nor a realist, but a consequentialist, reacting to developments at hand.4_{This theory might have been accurate at the time the article was}

published in 2012, just at the end of Obama’s first term. However, during the second term of the Obama administration, in which the Islamic State rose to prominence, a more idealistic rhetoric regarding the issue of fighting the Islamic State seemed to dominate its discourse.

The scholarly debate surrounding the discourse of the Obama administration is quite divergent in opinions. Most of the sources I consulted seemed tainted with personal political preferences, choices, and agendas. Yet, all scholars agree that the general concept of the policy established by the Obama administration regarding the Middle East and the struggle against the Islamic State is flawed and seemed to be failing. Disagreement seems to rule on how exactly the performance of the Obama administration in its efforts to counter the Islamic State could have been more effective. The argument from Asaf Siniver and Scott Lucas is very illuminating in this debate, who suggested in their article ‘The Islamic State lexical battleground’ that the wording of the policies of the Obama administration signifies that it was basically evading commitment to the conflict. Alternatively, Andreas Krieg rather argues in his article ‘Externalizing the burden of war’ that the multilateral approach taken by the Obama administration actually signals a readjustment to a changing global order. Externalizing the burden of engagement then is viewed as the switch from a leading nation to a supporting role for the United States and reliance on the powers of the Middle East. Instead, Jülide Karacok argues in her article ‘The Failure of Indirect Orientalism’ that the Islamic State itself is evidence for the failure of the indirect Orientalism she observes in the Middle East policy of the Obama

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administrations. Although these are only a few of the sources I consulted for this thesis, all have significant presence in the theory I produced.

Ultimately, with this essay I aim to test the approach taken by the Obama administration against the Edward Said’s theory about relations between the countries of the West and the East. In his groundbreaking work Orientalism (1978), Said argued that Western actors have defined the East as inferior and subservient to the West. He continued that the Western conceptualization of the East is based on Western values and concepts, suggesting that the dominant Western image of the East is a Western construct, rather than reality.5 By distancing the people of the East from the West by a “semi-mythical construct,” Said argues that the in-group version of the out-in-group rhetorically becomes the in-in-group’s object “to possess and direct.”6_{The rhetoric of the Obama administration regarding the Middle East and the Islamic}

State seems to incorporate such a possessive character. An illuminating example is the governmental issue on strategic guidance, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st_{Century Defense,” in which the over-arching goal seems to be promoting an international}

order based on the rule of law.7 Constituent to this established national interest is the belief that the rights inherent to such a legal construction are universal rights. However, these values are actually Western products. Promoting an international order based on the rule of law, would thus technically mean imposing Western in-group values on its out-group. Another important aspect to this theory is the way the Obama administration sought to antagonize and delegitimize the Islamic State. In line with framing the Islamic State to be the “face of evil,” Obama called its ideology “A violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam,” thereby assuming the moral high ground.8 By assuming the moral high ground, Obama inverted the logic of John

5_{Said, Edward, Orientalism (1978), xviii.} 6_{Said, Orientalism, xviii.}

7_{Department of Defense. ‘Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21}st_{Century Defense’, Defense}

Strategic Guidance (January 2015).

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Winthrop, framing the United States as a “city upon a hill,” implying that its illogical to condone the behavior of the Islamic State, thereby suggesting that what the American government condones is inherently logical and opposed to the evil that is the Islamic State: good.

The unifying question is how the discourse of the Obama administration limited its capability to develop an adequate policy for countering the Islamic State. Therefore, this thesis will primarily focus on analyzing the rhetoric of the Obama administration regarding its comprehensive effort to counter the Islamic State. Despite the fact that developments surrounding American engagement in the struggle against the Islamic State mainly happened during his second term, I will extend the timeframe to the campaign of Obama for the presidential elections of 2008, in which he was portrayed as an opponent of the wars waged by the Bush administration. In order to do so, I will draw parallels between the rhetoric regarding the Global War on Terror from the Bush administration, Obama’s interpretation, and his approach to the conflict against the Islamic State.

This thesis builds on the presumption that discourse represents a deliberate choice of language to describe certain phenomena, reflecting his or her views, the choices one is willing to make and the choices that are excluded from the pallet of possibilities beforehand. I aim to comment on the fallacy of such rhetoric when putting oneself up for the task to grapple with the global problem of terrorism and extreme ideologies. Therefore, this thesis will analyze the rhetoric utilized by the Obama administration regarding the Islamic State, its capability to pose a threat to the United States, and its suggested conceptualization of the way it is supposed to be countered. I will do so through three chapters, each emphasizing the rhetorical framing of the Islamic State by the Obama administration on a different operative scale. The first chapter will analyze the official discourse of the Obama administration on the concept of the Islamic State. I will then expand this argument by putting it in a regional framework, analyzing how the Obama administration represented the conflict against the Islamic State in its general Middle

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East policy. I will then extend this argument by putting it in a global framework, questioning how the Obama administration represents its own part in the struggle against the Islamic State and what it means for its general foreign policy.

In the first chapter I will argue that the discourse of the Obama administration suggests rhetorical conviction of the Islamic State as an enemy to mankind, a vehicle of evil. The discourse of the administration regarding the Islamic State is contradicting, at the least. Obama frequently tried to rationalize the nature of the radical Islamic violence, as he did when focusing on its roots in sectarianism and tribalism in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg from The

Atlantic. However, he has also suggested more antagonizing images of the enemy, often in the

aftermath of a terrorist attack in Europe or the United States. This would include calling the Islamic State the ‘face of evil’ at the G20 Summit, or calling their ideology “a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam,” as he did in the aforementioned interview with Goldberg.9

In the second chapter I will argue that the turn to multilateralism under Obama, aimed to strengthen its partners in the Middle East, was employed to increase the American-centered in-group. Extending the argument from the first chapter, I will focus on the multilateral approach taken by the Obama administration and what this would mean for the order of the Middle East. By abandoning the unilateral approach from its predecessor, the Obama administration externalized the burden of warfare to the countries of the Middle East, who faced the direct consequences and felt the primary impact of the conflict. Instead of sending a large armed force to deal with the Islamic State for the powers of the Middle East, the Obama administration encouraged its leaders to cooperate and face the mutual problem with their own

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forces and strength. Clearly, the long-term effect was the strengthening of an American-centered coalition in the Middle East, extending American influence in the region.

In the third chapter I will argue that the representation of the threat posed by the Islamic State to American national interests in the Middle East by the Obama administration signifies that the conflict is part of a larger agenda, rather than an end goal by itself. The crux of this argument relies on my observation that the destruction of the Islamic State does not seem to be the nucleus of the rhetorical framework constructed by the Obama administration. Its focus on multilateralism would rather suggest that the goal to obliterate the Islamic State was part of a larger agenda instead of focusing on the problem at hand, or even at the Middle East. Despite the fact that Obama aimed to dissociate idealism from politics and ultimately ended up utilizing ideologically induced rhetoric shows either the ingrained presence of idealism in American politics as well as the perseverance of American exceptionalism. The selectively used, aforementioned, rhetorical style of ascribing epical proportions to the conflict served to encourage non-American policy makers to engage in the fight against the Islamic State, to be American proxies. Ultimately, Obama seemed to encourage other nations to stand on what he believed to be the right side of history: the American side of history.

This thesis is a product of my effort to comment on the current academic debate surrounding the conceptualization of the nature of the Islamic State itself and the response as established by the Obama administration. Furthermore, this thesis is a case-study of the discourse of the Obama administration on the Middle East, radical Islamic, terrorists, and the Islamic State. I aim to contribute to the current academic discourse considering the general reflection on the Obama administration, and more specifically, about its Middle East policy and its comprehensive effort to counter the Islamic State. Consequently, with this thesis I intend to remark on the approach taken by the Obama administration in order to react to the situation in the Middle East. By doing so, I aim to contribute to Western discourse on the Islamic State and

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similar organizations in order to improve efficiency in the fight for a lasting peace without extremist groups like the Islamic State.

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Chapter 1: Terminological Warfare

President Obama never really was ambiguous about his conviction that the United States would ultimately defeat the Islamic State. Before the Islamic State conquered territory in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, just before its militants captured their first major city, Fallujah, he told David Remnick of The New Yorker that “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee (Junior Varsity) team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” thereby downplaying the threat the Islamic State poses to American strategic interests.10_{After the beheadings of American journalists James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and Peter}

Kassig (or Abdul-Rahman Kassig following his adopted Islamic name), Obama seemed to perceive an increased danger. In his speech from September 2014 he claimed that the United States “can’t erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm.”11_{He continued by stating that “if left unchecked, these terrorists}

could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States.”12

In this opening chapter it will be argued that the discourse of the Obama administration suggests rhetorical conviction of the Islamic State as an enemy to mankind, a vehicle of evil. Consequently, it will analyze the scholarly debate surrounding the discourse of the Obama administration regarding the concept of the Islamic State. Scholars have been in disagreement when considering the rhetoric of the Obama administration regarding the Islamic State and the campaign it has engaged in to counter it. Currently, the debate seems to be divided between scholars that consider Obama’s rhetoric regarding the Islamic State evidence of a strategy that

10_{Remnick, ‘Going the Distance’ (05-06-2017).}

11_{The White House. “Statement by the President on ISIL.” Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov.}

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/10/statement-president-isil-1 (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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is deliberately evasive and scholars who rather argue that delegitimizing the Islamic State served the strategic interests of gaining support for the cause against the Islamic State. For example, Associate Professor in International Security Asaf Siniver and Professor of International Politics Scott Lucas focus in their article “The Islamic State lexical battleground: US foreign policy and the abstraction of threat” on the choice made by the Obama administration to persist in calling the group by the acronym ‘ISIL.’ Short for ‘Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant,’ the American government thus insisted on using a geographical name from the colonial era that is actually no longer in use. Furthermore, it ignored the more commonly used references such as ‘the Islamic State,’ ‘the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS),’ or ‘Daesh (acronym for the Arabic name al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham).’ Siniver and Lucas argue that by tactically refusing the Islamic State recognition of its self-proclaimed statehood, the Obama administration aimed to evade a political, economic, military, and ideological commitment to the conflict.13 However, scholars like political analyst Phyllis Bennis in her book titled Understanding ISIS and the Global War on Terror (2015) assert that Obama adopted this kind of rhetoric as part of his campaign to counter the Islamic State in order to delegitimize the group and its claims.14_{This debate on the matter of discourse regarding the}

Obama administration when referring to its adversary calling itself the Islamic State will then form a premise for the next chapter, which will consider the representation of the physical threat to the American homeland and its citizens as posed by the Islamic State.

1.1: Conceptualizing the Islamic State

Political opponents of Obama have frequently called his campaign to counter the Islamic State incoherent and too restrained to be effective. While campaigning for the Presidential elections,

13_{Siniver, A. and Lucas, S., ‘The Islamic State lexical battleground: US foreign policy and the abstraction of}

threat’, International Affairs 92 (1) (2016), 64.

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Donald Trump commented that the war was being waged “politically correct,” arguing that “we’re not taking it to them.”15_{Senator John McCain has similarly been critical of the Obama}

administration regarding its efforts to counter the Islamic State, stating in July 2015 that "our means and our current level of effort are not aligned with our ends (…) that suggests we are not winning, and when you are not winning in war, you are losing."16 Whereas his opponents have frequently stated their desire, or conviction, that it is necessary to step up the war, the Obama administration has proven to be reserved about full commitment to engage in efforts aimed at achieving the goal to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” as Obama suggested in September 2014.17_{Similarly, journalist Patrick Cockburn argued in his book The Rise of the}

Islamic State (2015) that war-weariness has prevented the Obama administration from

committing completely to a large-scale operation to counter the Islamic State in Iraq.18

According to Cockburn this has led the United States to a general “politics of the last atrocity” in the Middle East; a restrained policy focused on responding to events the United States is morally obliged to react to, such as the beheadings of Foley, Sotloff, and Kassig.19

Siniver and Lucas have argued that one of the most evident signs of this war-weariness is the ambiguity over the name the Obama administration used to refer to the group that calls itself the Islamic State, ‘ISIL.’ They assert that using the term ‘ISIL’ can be regarded as an evasion in strategic, policy, and operational terms. By rhetorically detaching the group from Syria, the Obama administration has eliminated the incentive to form a response to the Islamic State in its local setting. The ‘L’ in ‘ISIL’ is supposed to refer to the geographical area called

15_{Fox News. “Trump slams Obama, Clinton for ‘politically correct’ war against ISIS, warns of more attacks.”}

Foxnews.com. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/18/trump-slams-obama-clinton-for-politically-correct-war-against-isis-warns-more-attacks.html (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

16_{Riechmann, Deb. “Senators criticize US policy to combat Islamic State militants.” Usnews.com.}

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/07/07/us-military-chiefs-face-tough-questioning-from-senators (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

17_{Hudson, David. “President Obama: “We Will Degrade and Ultimately Destroy ISIL.”}

Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/09/10/president-obama-we-will-degrade-and-ultimately-destroy-isil (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

18_{Cockburn, Patrick, The Rise of the Islamic State (New York: Verso Books, 2015), 145.} 19_{Cockburn, The Rise of the Islamic State, 93.}

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‘the Levant’ in colonial times. Siniver and Lucas refer to an article from The New York Times by Maureen Dowd when they question whether this colonial reference should be read as “a nostalgic nod to a time when puppets were more malleable and grateful to their imperial overlords.”20_{However, Bennis argues that the L should be read as an insult. The geographical}

area ‘the Levant’ was referring to is basically the same area as al-Sham refers to, which the group has previously included in their name when they still referred to themselves as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham). Not unlike the name

the group adopted after their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the establishment of a global Caliphate in June 2014, the Islamic State (al-Khalifa or ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah), the name is thus supposed to refer to the group’s aspirations, rather than their position. According to Bennis, the insult then seems to be the colonial connotation in the term ‘the Levant,’ suggesting that the Middle East is not the Islamic State’s to claim as their own.21

1.2: The Islamic State, the terrorist group

Another frequently debated point of discussion is the way the Islamic State should be considered in terms of its organizational structure. Obama stated on the 13th_{anniversary of}

the 9/11 attacks, in 2014, that “ISIL is certainly not a state (…) it is recognized by no government nor by the people it subjugates."22 He continued by claiming that "ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple, and it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way."23 Siniver and Lucas argue that this should be considered a rhetorical trick. By abstracting the Islamic State as a terrorist threat, the Obama administration has adopted the post-2001 discourse in which counterterrorism was preferred over confrontation in local

20_{Siniver, Lucas, ‘The Islamic State lexical battleground’, 66.}

21_{Bennis, Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror, 35.}

22_{Killough, Ashley. “Strong reaction to Obama statement: ‘ISIL is not Islamic.” CNN.com.}

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/10/politics/obama-isil-not-islamic/ (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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terms.24 They continue by arguing that this approach showed a lack of strategic coherence, stating: “as long as the priority is set as the fight against ‘terrorism,’ and the ‘homeland’ is not attacked, then success can be claimed.”25_{Counterterrorism then functions as a way to}

respond to the threat without committing to war in a large, structured fashion. Therefore, refusal of recognition of the Islamic State’s statehood could be tactically employed by the Obama administration in order to downplay the threat and decrease the perceived urgency for a coherent response.

However, a relevant question is whether an incoherent strategy can still be considered a strategy, and if so, can it be altered at all? As political correspondent Ryan Lizza from The New

Yorker argues, Obama seemed to deal with the crises case-by-case and evaded a template

response, which corresponded with his rhetoric that idealism should be abandoned and policy makers should instead rule with a realistic approach.26 Incoherence then becomes an essential element to the strategy. Aspects might change over time as the Middle East is subjected to changing conditions, but that is what the strategy is supposed to anticipate. In contrast, Shadi Hamid from The Atlantic referred in his 2013 article to Obama’s Middle East policy during the Arab Spring as subjected to a ‘Responsibility Doctrine,’ using the term from foreign-policy analysts Nina Hachigian and David Shorr.27 Hachigian and Shorr define the Responsibility Doctine as “a strategy of “prodding other influential nations (…) to help shoulder the burdens of fostering a stable, peaceful world order.”28_{Hamid would then suggest that Obama had no}

strategy but instead responded to the developments at hand and acted mainly to encourage other powerful nations. Although both interpretations might seem different explanations of the same conclusion, the difference lies in the matter of intent. Whereas Lizza argues that Obama

24_{Siniver, Lucas, ‘The Islamic State lexical battleground’, 63-64.} 25_{Siniver, Lucas, 78.}

26_{Lizza, Ryan, ‘The Consequentialist’, The New Yorker (May 2011).}

27_{Hamid, Shadi, ‘Islamism, the Arab Spring, and the Failure of America’s Do-Nothing Policy in the Middle}

East’, The Atlantic (9 October 2015).

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believed an incoherent case-by-case strategy to be more useful and thus intentional, Hamid presents Obama’s Middle East policy as contradictive and a result of an “unwillingness or inability to use American leverage to pressure Arab governments, including those with Islamist leanings.”29

Yet, refusing to recognize the statehood of the Islamic State is not essential for delegitimizing it according to Siniver and Lucas. On the contrary, they would rather argue that to acknowledge the Islamic State and its governance is a precondition for challenging its legitimacy, confronting its claims with evidence of its policies and ideology. By putting it up to the same test as the rest of the nations of the world that are deemed legitimate, Siniver and Lucas argue that the Islamic State could prove its own legitimacy or fail this test and lose its claim. However, the question remains whether the government of the Islamic State is aiming to play following the rules of the other nations of the world at all. Will it accept to abide to another law and notion of legitimacy than their own?

American historian and expert on conflict analysis Matthew Levinger would rather argue that Obama has made use of the negative connotation of the term ‘terrorists.’ In his essay ‘A Core National Security Interest: Framing Atrocities Prevention,’ Levinger analyzed speeches from Obama and formulated three rhetorical frameworks: the legalistic (or liberal internationalist) frame; the moralistic frame; and the security frame. He found that Obama focused primarily on the moralistic and security frameworks when addressing the topic of the Islamic State. For this chapter the moralistic framework is more relevant for this discussion, the security frame will be discussed in the next chapter. In contrast to Siniver and Lucas, Levinger argues that Obama’s primary objective of his speeches regarding matters involving the Islamic State as “to convey the aura of legality, morality, and security (or il-legality, immorality, and

29_{Hamid, Shadi, ‘Islamism, the Arab Spring, and the Failure of America’s Do-Nothing Policy in the Middle}

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insecurity), rather than an iron-clad logical exposition.”30 Obama’s rhetoric often addressed the brutality of the perpetrators and the suffering of their victims. Levinger continues by stating that this would correspond to the first of four institutional Strategic Priorities as the State Department identified in the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review from April 2015, “preventing and mitigating conflict and violent extremism.”31_{By delegitimizing parties}

like the Islamic State through framing the atrocities they commit in a moralistic way, denouncing them in humanitarian, emotive terms, the Obama administration seems to wage a propaganda war in order to discourage people from supporting, or joining, the Islamic State. Correspondingly, the Obama administration initiated efforts such as the ‘Think Again, Turn Away’ campaign from the United States State Department on social media. Its official YouTube account frequently posted videos containing stories told by survivors of the Islamic State and footage reportedly shot within the borders of the Caliphate, testifying of the brutality and horrors executed by militants of the Islamic State.32

1.3: “A violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam”

A third point frequently debated is the representation of the Islamic State by the Obama administration in terms of its ideology. Despite the group’s inclusion of ‘Islamic’ in its name, thereby referring to its supposedly Islamic roots and ideology and heavy support from Sunnis, Obama stated that in his speech on 10 September 2014 that “ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”33

This rhetoric can be considered as an extension of Bush’s speech on 20 September 2001, when

30_{Levinger, Matthew, ‘A Core National Security: Framing Atrocities Prevention’, Politics and Governance}

Vol.3 (4) (2015), 29.

31_{Levinger, ‘A Core National Security’, 27.}

32_{Katz, Rita. “The State Department’s Twitter War With ISIS is Emberrassing.” Time.com.}

http://time.com/3387065/isis-twitter-war-state-department/ (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

33_{Hudson, David. “President Obama: “We Will Degrade and Ultimately Destroy ISIL.”}

Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/09/10/president-obama-we-will-degrade-and-ultimately-destroy-isil (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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he addressed the Muslims throughout the world, saying “We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.”34_{Just like Bush, Obama seemed to dissociate the enemy and its}

affiliates from Islam in order evade its actions being interpreted as an attack against Islam, which would affect American partnerships and alliances.

Yet, as Jean-Pierre Filiu, professor of Middle East Studies at the Sciences Po in Paris argues, those directing the propaganda of the Islamic State seem to frame the conflict in religious terms that would include an attack on the religion of Islam itself. As Filiu argues, the ideology of the Islamic State seems to have been built upon the apocalyptic prophesy heralding a final battle against the Western powers near the town of Dabiq.35_{John Brennan, director of}

the CIA, suggested that joining the Islamic State in this rhetorical style should be avoided, claiming that “the goal is not to force a Huntington template onto this conflict,” referring to Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations (1996).36_{Therefore, as Bennis seems to}

suggest, the Obama administration has been lured into a war in the Middle East by the Islamic State. This would explain the goal of the atrocities it commits, most violently, and spreads via the internet as propaganda. By directly attacking the Islamic State after public outrage, rather than through proxies, the United States and its allies are giving the Islamic State exactly what it seems to want.37

The analysis of the rhetoric of the Obama administration by Bennis would then suggest that it was aimed to dissociate the effort to counter the Islamic State from the unilateral response

34_{The White House. “Address to a Joint Session and the American People”.}

Georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

35_{Withnall, Adam. “Isis apocalypse expert says sending ground troops to Syria is the ‘worst trap’ the West could}

fall into.” Independent.co.uk. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-apocalypse-expert-says-sending-ground-troops-to-syria-is-the-worst-trap-the-west-could-fall-a6764731.html (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

36_{Goldberg, Jeffrey, ‘The Obama Doctrine’, The Atlantic.}

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to the 9/11 attacks as initiated by the Bush administration. When Bush addressed Congress nine days after the 9/11 attacks, he stated that “they hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”38

Consequently, he portrayed the situation as a binary conflict between the advocates of freedom and those opposing it, a direct confrontation between the United States and its ideological counterpart. Much like the prophesy of the Islamic State, the Bush administration seemed to theorize that failing to stop the enemy would be a disaster of apocalyptic proportions.

As Bennis suggests, the rules of establishing an Islamic caliphate require its caliph and government to gain acknowledgement of the global Islamic community, or Umma.39_Obama

therefore seems to have been focusing on countering al-Baghdadi’s claim on the true meaning of Islam. Evident in this ideological warfare is his statement in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic, claiming that the ideology of the Islamic State is “a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam by a faction—a tiny faction—within the Muslim community that is our enemy, and that has to be defeated.”40

Bennis does agree with Obama that a large number of the supporters and militants of the Islamic State were encouraged by violence, heroism, despair, anti-Western sentiments, or other personal reasons. However, she argues that expressions of religious faith by the Islamic State, such as its version of the sharia law, seems rooted in Wahhabism. Based on the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, this fraction within Islam is centered on a “return to the fundamentals of their faith, ensuring that God – rather than materialism or worldly ambition – dominated the political order.”41_{More accurately, she continues, the ideology of the Islamic}

State adheres to the strand within Wahhabism that focuses on the teachings of Ibn Saud. While

38_{The White House. “Address to a Joint Session and the American People”.}

Georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

39_{Bennis, Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror, 27-28.} 40_{Goldberg, Jeffrey, ‘The Obama Doctrine’.}

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al-Wahhab aimed to spread his teachings through education, study, and debate, Ibn Saud was determined on enforcing Wahhabism through violence in order to enhance his own political position.42 Furthermore, Bennis argues that most of its militants are Sunni Muslims and are reportedly encouraged to join the ranks of the Islamic State because of sectarian motifs. Around 2005, a war commenced between Sunni and Shi’i Muslims after Sunnis had become disenfranchised under the Shi’a governments. Therefore, she asserts, a large number of Sunnis fighting under the flag of the Islamic are more focused on fighting Shi’ites than any other war really.43 Bennis would thus suggest that Sunni Islam has been a bigger pull factor for the recruits than the fundamentalist approach that Obama maintained.

1.4: Defense by offense

Another approach to consider this way of framing the Islamic State in religious terms is suggested by Levinger. Instead of framing Obama’s rhetoric surrounding the ideology or religion of the Islamic State in terms of delegitimization, he would rather argue that the Obama administration sought to advocate its policy measures, or rather, the lack of it. In correspondence with his observation that Obama hardly ever framed countering the Islamic State as a matter of American national security, as will be further discussed in the next chapter, Levinger argues that Obama has effectively justified inaction in the face of genocidal violence. After analyzing Obama’s rhetoric utilizing a qualitative model for linguistic analysis developed by Russian linguist Roman Jakobson, Levinger concludes that by expanding the in-group, forming a coalition to fight the Islamic State multilaterally, the Obama administration eliminated the need for action from the United States.44

42_{Bennis, Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror, 32.} 43_{Bennis, 54-55.}

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The model developed by Jakobson analyzes the meaning of texts and how it is shaped through utilizing patterns of repetition and contrast. Besides its ‘referential function,’ he observed that the semiotic content of a text is also determined by its ‘poetic function,’ how meaning is constructed by the juxtaposition of textual elements.45_{It presumes that “in political}

speeches, as in poetry, meanings are established and reinforced in large part through the strategic use of the “poetic function.”46_{In his article Levington analyzed fifteen speeches and}

statements from Obama in total based on three topics. Five speeches and statements, each regarding the conflict in Libya, the conflict in Syria, and the American response to actions taken the Islamic State. All were delivered between 2011 and 2015. By focusing on three frameworks, the “legalistic,” the “moralistic,” and the “security-related,” Levinger observed that by using rhetorical devises to emphasize the boundaries between the in-group and out-group, or ‘other’ as Edward Said would argue, the Obama administration has increased apathy from the in-group towards the out-group. Because members of the in-group are characteristically depicted to be “warranting of greater concern,” members of the Obama administration rhetorically justified inaction.47 Consequently, Levinger concludes, “a compelling strategic narrative cannot involve only words; it must involve words that express shared values and that are translated into action. Protecting threatened civilians throughout the world from genocide and mass atrocities is one imperative around which American interests and American values coalesce.”48

1.5: The enemy as the quintessential other

When Obama stated in September 2014 that “ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple, and it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way," one could argue that

45_{Levinger, ‘A Core National Security’, 30.} 46_{Levinger, 31.}

47_{Ibid, 26.} 48_{Ibid, 41.}

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he aimed to display the barbarity and violent nature of the Islamic State.49 By framing the Islamic State and its militants as barbaric, having failed to modernize its views on the religion it corrupts and the world, a humanitarian risk, and an enemy to international laws such as the Geneva Conventions, the Obama administration adopted a rhetoric of antagonization. However, disagreement ruled the Obama administration on how to evaluate the threat of the Islamic State. Secretary of State John Kerry argued in an interview with Goldberg that the Islamic State “is a threat to everybody in the world,” wondering “what would happen if we don’t stand and fight them.”50_{On the contrary, Obama maintained that the Islamic State is not an existential threat,}

asserting that climate change is.

Key to this strategy of antagonization is the need to dehumanize the enemy, according to leading authority on the Middle East Amer Tahiri. By stating that the Islamic State was a problem for everyone on the globe, Tahiri would argue that Kerry rhetorically convicted those operating under the flag of the Islamic State of a ‘crime against humanity.’ 51_{The concept of a}

crime against humanity was created in the eighteenth century, when pirates acted as sovereigns and posed a problem for the international community. In addressing the problem, those involved with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and the Treaty of Rastadt (1714) developed the judicial concept of the crime against humanity. Those found guilty had their coverage under penal code or laws of war withdrawn. Tahiri, with Kerry, argued that the members of the Islamic State had extracted themselves from humanity by behaving in a way deemed unhuman, or as Tahiri argues: “wild beasts.”52 Having committed genocide, the Islamic State was thus not represented to be an Iraqi, Syrian, or Islamic problem, but a problem for mankind in its entirety. As Kerry stated in Paris on November 16th, 2015 in response to the terror attacks in Paris, that “this is not

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/10/politics/obama-isil-not-islamic/ (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

51_{Taheri, Amir, ‘The Middle East in Search of a New Balance of Power’, American Foreign Policy Interests 36}

(2014), 348.

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a clash of civilizations. These terrorists have declared war on all civilizations.”53_{It should be}

noted that, unlike Obama, Kerry was an overt advocate for stepping up the military engagement to counter the Islamic State. Therefore, it should be taken into consideration that Kerry aimed to encourage nations to join the fight against the Islamic State by choosing to exaggerate the type of enemy the Islamic State is to the in-group.

As mentioned above, Obama chose a less apocalyptic rhetoric in the way he framed the type of enemy civilization was dealing with and instead downplayed the threat by, for example, calling it a jayvee team, or a lesser threat than climate change. By questioning how one could distinguish between rhetoric in support of a clearly defined strategy and language utilized to rhetorically cover up the lack of strategy, Siniver and Lucas argue that one should scrutinize the way the Obama administration refers to its enemy. Just like referring to the Islamic State by using “ISIL,” calling the enemy a jayvee team or playing down its capacity to pose a threat seems part of an evasion. They thus suggest that the Obama administration was playing down the size and threat of the Islamic State in order to distract from strategic failure.54

However, all these arguments seem to fail in formulating a complete, comprehensive argument. Whereas the argument from Taheri would be accurate for the words of John Kerry, it does not seem to be applicable when regarding the rhetoric of Obama, the official leader of the Obama administration. The rhetoric of dehumanization in the terms Taheri employs would thus not represent the entire Obama administration. Furthermore, the suggestion from Siniver and Lucas would primarily apply to the argument that Obama aims to restrain American involvement in the war to counter the Islamic State. Yet, by playing down the threat that the Islamic State poses, Obama would counteract his efforts to form a coalition to fight the Islamic State by discouraging them. The argument would, however, correspond with the theory of

53_{Shahrestani, Vin. “John Kerry: Isil has ‘declared war against all civilisations.” Telegraph.co.uk.}

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11999752/John-Kerry-Isil-has-declared-war-against-all-civilisations.html (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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scholars like Levinger who maintain that central to the anti-Islamic State strategy stands a rhetoric to delegitimize the enemy. Playing down the threat towards the home front would primarily serve the strategic interest of discouraging potential militants and take away the incentive for American officials to call for stepping up the war. Playing down the enemy’s capacity of threatening the world order and the lives of its inhabitants thus seems more logical when considered to correspond with Obama’s presumed conviction that leading the United States into a war in the Middle East again would be unwise.

Yet, whereas Kerry framed the Islamic State as a problem of everyone, a claim that has been rebuked by many, Obama’s approach could also be explained as part of a campaign to frame them as enemies of mankind. By delegitimizing the claim of the Islamic State, Obama rhetorically revoked its right to exist. As Obama remained adamant to refrain from engaging the American military, he did urge regional powers to intervene. The approach of delegitimization would serve two goals. First, to delegitimize the Islamic State in order to dry up its human resources. Second, to morally strengthen the cause to counter the Islamic State by legitimizing its cause.

Conclusion

This chapter argued that the Obama administration rhetorically convicted the Islamic State to be an enemy to mankind. It focused on four rhetorical devices that seems to dominate the debate: naming the enemy, conceptualizing it in terms of structure, conceptualizing it in terms of ideology, and finally, antagonizing the enemy.

All authors agree that the Obama administration did not rely on a coherent military campaign. Instead, its efforts to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State were centered on utilizing soft power. In doing so Obama and his staff members insisted on referring to the enemy as “ISIL” in order to refrain from recognizing the establishment of the Caliphate

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rhetorically as a fact. By reacting in minimalistic proportions, it did not fully respond in terms of the apocalyptical prophesy of the Islamic State that spoke of a final epic battle against between the crusader army, by many believed to be the American army. Furthermore, the Islamic State was constantly framed as a terrorist organization, never a state, in the narrative of the Obama administration. This was also evident in the persistence in representing the Islamic State as a violent group of murderers and calling its ideology “a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam.” As Levinger argues, by framing the conflict in moralistic terms, the Obama administration emphasized the differences between the in-group and the out-group. Consequently, it enlarged the in-group and took away the imperative for the United States to step up its war efforts. Finally, although Obama did not share Kerry’s opinion that the Islamic State posed a threat to everybody in the world, instead playing it down, Obama did formulate a clear image of the Islamic State as an unequivocal ‘enemy.’ By shaping a certain image of the enemy, Obama clearly made a rhetorical suggestion at a binary conflict between the civilized and barbarians. Yet, he made sure to refrain from exaggerations in order to evade framing it in apocalyptic terms and provide the enemies of the United States with incentive to join the Islamic State.

In conclusion, this chapter thus argued that the Obama administration clearly focused on a strategy of delegitimizing the Islamic State in its efforts at rhetorical warfare. It claimed that this strategy served three purposes. It aimed to serve the purpose of canalizing the call for war in the United States, delegitimizing the Islamic State towards potential recruits and allies, and finally to mobilize support for the coalition. One could thus observe that Obama applied his statement before the United Nations that “ideologies are not defeated with guns. They’re defeated by better ideas—a more attractive and more compelling vision” on the struggle against multiple adversaries.55

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Chapter 2: Concerning the physical threat of the

Islamic State to American national security

In April 2016 President Obama claimed in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic that “ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States.”56 While Obama frequently stated that he was convinced that the United States should be involved in the conflict in a leading position, he also remained adamant that he would not order boots on the ground. Such behavior signaled that the American government did not perceive the threat to be dire, which showed its partners that the United States would not be fully committed to renewed military engagement in the Middle East. Obama externalized the burden of the struggle to counter the Islamic State primarily to the powers of the Middle East while the United States would provide support. By strengthening the regional coalition against the Islamic State, the United States also envisioned to create an alliance of powerful, stable, partners based on the principles of a democracy. What does this mean for the role of the United States within this conflict?

In this chapter I intend to argue that the Obama administration pursued a multilateral approach to the struggle against the Islamic State in order to strengthen its partners in the Middle East, thereby increasing the American-centered in-group. Expanding the in-group would correspond to the principle of ‘democratic stability,’ which Obama based his presidency on according to Kadri Liik, political analyst for the European Council on Foreign Relations.57

Consequently, I will first argue that although Obama dissociated his administration from the Global War on Terror, it actually never ended, nor did it change substantially. Second, I will

57_{Liik, Kadri. “What can we expect from Russia in Syria.” Ecfr.eu.}

http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_what_can_we_expect_from_russia_in_syria5035 (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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argue that the Obama administration continued to utilize the politics of fear from his predecessor in order to gain support. When confronted with the challenge of fighting the Islamic State, the Obama administration deviated from the rhetoric from George W. Bush, but did utilize the already present public threat perception inherited from the Bush era. As Richard Jackson argues, the politics of fear are essential when in need for popular support. Similarly, Obama externalized the burden of warfare in order to keep the promises he made when he campaigned before the presidential elections of 2008. This will prove essential for the last point, in which I will argue that the predilection for multilateralism by the Obama administration shows that the struggle against the Islamic State is instrumental to the agenda transcending the defeat of the Islamic State, namely a stronger, more substantial order in the Middle East on American terms.

2.1: The post-Bush War on Terror

According to Associate Professor American Politics and International Studies Trevor McCrisken many mistook Obama’s plans for responsible withdrawal from Iraq for a symbol of a general disengagement from the Global War on Terror. Although Obama repeatedly promised to step up the war against America’s ‘real’ enemies in countries such as Pakistan, and intensify the war in Afghanistan, the audience seemed to believe that Obama aimed to withdraw significantly from the global counterterrorism effort after he would win the elections.58_Instead,

Senator Obama focused on withdrawing American military forces from the War in Iraq and represented it as a nuisance from the real war, the Global War on Terror. After the elections, Obama commenced the gradual withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq, but

58_{McCrisken, Trevor, ‘Ten Years On: Obama’s War on Terrorism in Rhetoric and Practice’, International}

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increased military presence and action in other terrorist-infested countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

After the Obama administration seemed to persist in continuing the global effort to fight terrorism, academics like Andrew J. Bacevich and Richard Jackson began arguing that the ambitious promises that Obama allegedly made had stranded in Washington. Bacevich argued in January 2010 that “the candidate who promised to “change the way Washington works” has become Washington’s captive” and Jackson argued that the promises of change had been trapped by the assumptions about the 9/11 attacks. The presumed existential nature of the terrorist threat left the impression that it was self-evident that it must be countered and the war thus should go on.59 However, as McCrisken argues, abandoning the global counterterrorism effort never was a priority in itself for the Obama administration. On the contrary, “his key criticism of the Bush administration was not that it was giving too much emphasis to terrorism in its foreign policy, but that it allowed itself to be distracted from the ‘real’ war on terror by invading Iraq.”60_{Accordingly, in July 2008, Obama emphasized “the real and present danger}

posed by violent extremists who would use terrorism against Americans at home and around the world.”61_{According to McCrisken, Obama thus shared the conception of imperative of}

fighting terrorism of his predecessor, which both thought to be necessary in order to guarantee the national security of the United States.

McCrisken further argues that this resulted in a continuation of the counterterrorism strategy in the fashion of the late-Bush period during the first term of the presidency of Obama. Because of the international backlash against the early strategy, strategic thinking within the Bush administration changed between 2006 and 2007. Many of the promises Obama made thus actually heralded the modifications Bush had already effectuated.62_{Senior Lecturer in Global,}

59_{McCrisken, ‘Ten Years On’, 783.} 60_{McCrisken, 786.}

61_{Ibid, 787.} 62_{Ibid, 784.}

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Urban and Social Studies Aiden Warren and Lecturer in International Relations Ingveld Bode suggest in their article “Altering the Playing Field: The U.S. Redefinition of the Use-of-force” that the counterterrorism campaign of the Obama administration has actually deepened some of the more disputed aspects of the Bush-era. They argue that whereas the Obama administration has decreased American military presence in terms of boots on the ground, it has expanded its use-of-force by targeted killings through utilizing drones.63_{This would indicate a}

lower threshold towards military force since the risk of losing American lives was taken out of the equation.

Feste argues that the Obama administration focused primarily on an approach of problem solving.64 It therefore operated through a different ‘lens’ than the Bush administration did. Whereas the Clinton administration aimed to snuff out the threat by refusing to engage those responsible for it, the Bush administration encountered the result from that, intensification, and chose to fight it. Consequently, the Obama administration engaged the crisis with more experience than the Bush administration did and was thus able to acknowledge that a solution by force had failed. Instead of intensifying that force, Obama aimed for gradual de-escalation and started countering al-Qaida through forging new partnerships.65_{Therefore, it}

began committing to solving the problems that ultimately constituted the enemy rather than putting all its resources on confronting the enemy militarily. Unlike Bush, Obama seemed to be following a ‘constructivist dictum,’ which would leave the interpretation of the threat unfixed.66

This would mean that, although destroying al-Qaida remained an essential objective, its destruction ceased to be a primary objective. Instead, obliterating the threat that al-Qaida constituted and utilized in order to threaten the United States became more important.

63_{Warren, A., Bode, I., ‘Altering the Playing Field: The U.S. Redefinition of the Use-of-force’, Contemporary}

Security Policy 36:2 (2015), 182.

64_{Feste, Karen A., America Responds to Terrorism: Conflict Resolution Strategies of Clinton, Bush, and Obama}

(2011), 203-204.

65_{Feste, America Responds to Terrorism, 10,} 66_{Feste, 10.}

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As Warren and Bode argue, “when it came to interpreting the right to use military force in self-defence, the transition from Bush to Obama can be characterized as a change in style rather than in substance.”67 In accordance to the 2001 Authorization for Use Military Force, which licensed the killing of individuals associated with al-Qaida and its affiliates on a global scale under the Global War on Terror-framework, Obama continued to pursue this strategy through the deployment of drones. The Obama administration therefore continued the precedent of Bush by fighting al-Qaida on a ‘global battlefield.’68 As the Director of the CIA John O. Brennan argued:

we are engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qa’ida, the United States takes the legal position that—in accordance with international law—we have the authority to take action against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces without doing a separate self-defense analysis each time. And as President Obama has stated on numerous occasions, we reserve the right to take unilateral action if or when other governments are unwilling or unable to take the necessary actions themselves.69

Considering the scope and inclination to wage war against al-Qaida, the Obama administration thus did not show very much difference from the Bush administration. Nevertheless, as Feste suggests, Obama and his administration did show an inclination to accept the limitations to such a war, stating in his 2010 State of the Union Address: “let’s put aside the schoolyard taunts about who’s tough. Let’s reject the false choice between protecting our people and upholding our values (…) let’s leave behind the fear and division.”70 By doing so, Obama also aimed to

67_{Warren, Bode, ‘Altering the Playing Field’, 182.} 68_{Warren, Bode, 187.}

69_{The White House. “Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address.” Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov.}

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010-state-union-address#transcript (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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eliminate propaganda tools for the terrorist organizations, evident in his campaigns to close prison facilities such as Guantanamo Bay.

Nevertheless, Obama continued Bush’s rhetoric that emphasized the necessity for self-defense against terrorism, according to McCrisken. In his second autobiographical work

Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006), written before he had

been elected President, he expressed that “the effect of September 11 felt profoundly personal’ and believed that “chaos had come to our doorstep.”71_{Furthermore, McCrisken refers to the}

speech he gave before Congress following the failed Detroit bombing plot of Christmas Day 2009 as the moment in which Obama articulated his dedication to the Global War on Terror, “using language that could just as easily have been deployed by his predecessor.”72_{During this}

speech he argued that:

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been reminded again of the challenge we face in protecting our country against a foe that is bent on our destruction. And while passions and politics can often obscure the hard work before us, let’s be clear about what this moment demands. We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.73

Richard Jackson articulated a similar argument in his 2004 article “The Politics of Threat and Danger: Writing the War on Terrorism” (2004) as the ‘politics of fear.’ By invoking the memory

71_{Obama, Barack H., The audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American dream (2006), 291–292.} 72_{McCrisken, ‘Ten Years On’, 788.}

73_{The White House. “Remarks by the President on Strengthening Intelligence and Aviation Security.”}

Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-strengthening-intelligence-and-aviation-security (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

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of the 9/11 attacks and discussing the possibility of similar disaster in the future, Obama utilized the fear for such a repetition in order to gain support for his campaign to counter the threat. Jackson observes that deploying this politics of fear serves multiple purposes, it enforces social discipline, mutes dissent, and increases the power of the national security state.74_{Key to the}

politics of fear is that it is utilized to normalize fear in a state of war and to legalize the doctrines of pre-emptive war. By rhetorically framing the enemy to be extraordinarily dangerous, the presumed nature of the adversary justifies the means with which the administration aims to eliminate the threat. During the presidency of Bush, Jackson observes, this was used to justify extralegal, or doubtful, behavior, such as the murder of prisoners during Operation Enduring Freedom, the illegal incarceration of terrorist suspects, and the murder and inhumane treatment of prisoners at detention facilities such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.75

Accordingly, Jackson observes that since the Global War on Terror started there has been a national adjustment to the threat of terrorism involving security measures at airports, airplanes, steel and concrete barricades around public buildings, government websites that encourage the building of sealed rooms and the hoarding of essential supplies, and a color-coded national terrorist warning system.76_{It would be reinforced by officials such as the United}

States Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioning “If they had the capability to kill millions of innocent civilians, do any of us believe they would hesitate to do so?” and Vice President Dick Cheney claiming that any “rational person” should fear the terrorist threat.77 The rhetoric of the Obama administration thus relied heavily on the previously established national state of fear in order to continue the American campaign to fight al-Qaida, the Taliban, and their affiliates: the ‘true’ enemies of the United States.

74_{Jackson, Richard, ‘The Politics of Threat and Danger: Writing the War on Terrorism’, British International}

Studies Association (22 December, 2014), 13.

75_{Jackson, ‘The Politics of Threat and Danger’, 19.} 76_{Jackson, 13-14.}

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2.2: The Global War on the Islamic State

In contrast to the efforts to counter al-Qaida and its affiliates, the Obama administration did not show any intention to confront the Islamic State. Although Obama vowed to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, this has resulted in a multilateral approach that primarily relied on local forces supported by American airstrikes, targeted killings through the use of drones, and focusing on draining the resources the Islamic State has been relying on, among others. Although, as mentioned in the previous chapter, Obama and a multitude of members of his administration have systematically played down the capabilities of the Islamic State, they insisted that fighting it was necessary to guarantee the safety of the citizens of the United States. How was fighting the Islamic State simultaneously represented as necessary and insignificant?

Not unlike the internal dispute of framing the enemy, the Obama administration also seemed divided on the perception of threat. Obama himself too has remained ambiguous about his conception of the threat that the Islamic State poses. After he compared the Islamic State to a JV-team in January 2014, he maintained on a conference in Argentina in March 2016 that “Groups like ISIL can’t destroy us, they can’t defeat us. They don’t produce anything. They’re not an existential threat to us.”78_{As Obama explained, although they did deem it necessary to}

engage, multilateralism would be the better option considering broader challenges to the international order.79 Although Obama claimed to reserve the right to unilaterally attack the Islamic State, he justified his refusal to do so by arguing that it would be unwise and unnecessary.80 As a result, various observers, such as Patrick Cockburn and Shadi Hamid, came to view the approach of the Obama administration as incoherent and defined by events.

78_{The White House. “Remarks by President Obama and President Macri of Argentina in Joint Press}

Conference.” Obamawhitehouse.archives.gov.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/03/23/remarks-president-obama-and-president-macri-argentina-joint-press (Accessed on 05-06-2017).

80_{Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Obama Doctrine.” The Atlantic.}