Barack Obama and Islamic State

BARACK OBAMA’s prime-time address of September 10th, bracing America for an open-ended campaign against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, marked a stunning turnaround for a cautious president, a once-again-hawkish Republican Party and—most strikingly—for a public galvanised by the beheading of two American journalists, after ignoring soaring death tolls in the Arab world (see chart). Mr Obama’s presidency is on the line, as critics ask whether he knows how to keep Americans safe.

When he proudly declared in 2011 that America’s war in Iraq would soon be over, Mr Obama can hardly have imagined that, three years later, public opinion would oblige him to deliver an address from the White House, assuring the country that almost 500 American troops will head to Iraq to join hundreds already there, where they will support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with advice, training, intelligence and equipment. New Iraqi national guard units in Sunni towns will also receive support, he said. Allies on the ground would be backed by “systematic” air strikes against IS in Syria as well as Iraq. American combat troops would not fight on foreign soil, he promised, choosing his words with legalistic precision. But: “If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

Since uprisings began against the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, Mr Obama has resisted calls from aides, among them his first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to arm relatively-moderate rebels on a large scale, or risk leaving a vacuum for extremists to fill. On August 8th the president deemed it a “fantasy” that the Syrian government could be beaten by arming moderates he called: “essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth”. A month later in his TV address, Mr Obama announced expanded aid for Syrian rebels, adding that in the fight against IS, “we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorises its people.” He compared this strategy—involving air power and support for regional allies fighting on the ground—to missions he said were succeeding in Somalia and Yemen.

Though the president believes he has the legal authority to launch air strikes, and bipartisan backing for his larger strategy, he renewed a call for Congress to authorise funds needed to train and equip large numbers of Syrian fighters. A request for $500m to help Syrian rebels has been stalled in Congress since June.

Asking Congress to approve a ramping-up of American counter-terror firepower might seem to answer complaints from members of Congress who have denounced Mr Obama as a “reluctant commander-in-chief” and demanded to be consulted. Yet in the hours before Mr Obama’s address, leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate were divided over how central a role to seek. Lots of Republicans are happily rediscovering hawkish instincts, jointly accusing Mr Obama (and Mrs Clinton, a putative 2016 presidential challenger) of running a feckless foreign policy. But with elections less than two months away, many in Congress fear taking war votes that might be held against them. As an unusually candid Republican congressman told reporters, many of his colleagues prefer a simple approach: they will denounce Mr Obama if his plan goes awry, and, should it succeed, “ask what took him so long”.

Approval of Mr Obama’s foreign policy is at record lows. But the public mood is far from consistent. After Syria used chemical weapons on its people last year, only one in five Americans thought striking the Assad regime was in their national interest. Voters flooded Congress with calls opposing even limited missile strikes.

Now the polls show nearly three-quarters of Americans backing air strikes on Iraq, two-thirds backing strikes on Syria and 61% believing action against IS is in America’s interests. The new public hawkishness is linked to the reporters’ beheading, pollsters report. Americans paid more attention to those murders than to any other news event in the past five years, according to one survey. America is still tired of war. But it wants to feel safe.