Drones and data

What Obama wishes he could say about ISIL

He's using all his tools, including ones he doesn't like such as drones and data collection. 

By Edward-Isaac Dovere

President Barack Obama has more he could say in response to the questions about ISIL he’s getting pummeled with since the Paris attacks. They’re just not, according to people familiar with his thinking, things that he wants to say out loud.

Things like, “Remember everyone panicking about how much surveillance we’re doing?” Or “How about all those people I’m killing with drones”? Those wouldn't have quite the right ring for a president who’s come reluctantly, and with continuing reservations, to both.

The sense among White House aides is that there’s a parallel to last year’s freak-out over Ebola and what’s happening now — wall-to-wall panic on cable news, a politicized rush to close the borders, a White House press corps fixation on minor elements like whether the president was appointing a “czar.” And close to no attention to successful efforts to combat the threat, whether a virus or a terrorist network; even a president who operates so often in scold mode isn’t going to downplay the fear he knows people are feeling right now.

Instead of insisting that people shouldn’t be afraid, as he did at points throughout his trip to Asia last week, Obama in his press conference at the White House on Tuesday with French President François Hollande acknowledged that people are afraid, but urged them not to be.

“What happened in Paris is truly horrific. I understand that people worry that something similar could happen here,” Obama said as part of a long statement opening the press conference. “I want you to know that we will continue to do everything in our power to defend our nation.”

Obama usually resists what he and his aides usually brush off as pointless theatrics that they think would come across as fake anyway. On ISIL, though, there’s more: Aides say Obama’s made a tactical decision not to give ISIL the head-to-head war with America he thinks they’re looking for and would get by elevating them with a broad stance, gunslinger routine.

But as he showed again Tuesday, he knows that what people are looking for at moments like this is emotion, and he can give it to them, kind of, when he wants to.

He spoke wistfully of Paris, describing a photo of him kissing first lady Michelle Obama in the Luxembourg Gardens that he keeps by his bedside. He recalled the historic ties between the U.S. and France, quoting the poem from the Statue of Liberty that he pointed out was a gift from France. He threw in a couple of French phrases and finished his comments with a handshake that awkwardly shifted into an outward facing hug for the cameras with Hollande.

“This was not only a strike against one of the world’s great cities,” Obama said with a measured dose of passion. “It was an attack against the world itself.”

He brushed past the other issues. The closest he came to addressing data collection, which people who know the president have said is a dilemma he considers an existential issue of his presidency, was an extended appreciation of law enforcement for preventing numerous attacks and a passing remark about stepped up intelligence coordination with international partners. The closest he came to talking about drones was a remark about “taking top commanders and leaders off the battlefield.”

The president, according to people who know him, would rather not be Big Brother Obama or Kill List Obama, and he certainly doesn’t want to be seen that way.

That creates a tricky situation for the White House. Obama wants credit for his response to terrorism, but he doesn’t want to be attached to many of the ways he’s managed that response.

“Obama isn’t anxious to be known as the drone president,” said a Democratic strategist familiar with his thinking. “But to anyone who looks at the strikes they’ve taken and the raids that have been authorized, he clearly is fiercely going after these guys.”

The White House has been keeping careful track, projecting confidence that they’ve got the situation under control. There hasn’t been an attack on American soil, Obama aides point out, and they’ve steadily been taking down ISIL in ways they think don’t get enough attention or credit.

“It doesn’t always feel like it every day, but our combined efforts are making progress against ISIL,” a senior White House official said late Monday. “In Iraq and Syria, ISIL has lost more than 20 [percent] to 25 percent of populated territory they once controlled.”

But as for any actual details on what will change now in the approach to ISIL, Obama didn’t get into that at all on Tuesday. Here, Obama couldn’t say what’s become increasingly clear: At least strategically, if not publicly, he will probably have to accede to Bashar Assad staying in power for a certain amount of time.

The French believe that the Paris attacks show that there’s no more time for Obama's policy of attrition — though all Hollande said publicly about this at the White House was that the time had come for “a new mind-set.”

Both he and Obama refused to set a date for Assad to be gone.

“We’ve got to let the process play itself out,” Obama said. “The notion that there would be an immediate date in advance of us getting a broad agreement on that political process, I think, doesn’t make sense.”

They both ducked specific answers on Russia’s role, including what the consequences should or will be from Turkey taking down a Russian jet, which Russian President Vladimir Putin used to accuse the Turks of having terrorist sympathies.

Obama said this was symptomatic of Russia targeting groups that weren’t ISIL and were, in fact, fighting ISIL at the same time that they’re fighting the Assad regime, which he said Putin’s got to stop propping up.

He encouraged the Russians to change course and combine efforts. As opposed to their 65-member coalition, Obama said, “Russia right now is a coalition of two: Russia and Iran, supporting Assad.”

Vice President Joe Biden expanded on that theme in very unusual impromptu comments to reporters after Obama and Hollande had left the East Room at the end of their press conference.

“It’s kind of hard to have it both ways. This is one of those god-awful events, I think, that may bring a lot of parties to their senses in what’s in their primary interests. Everybody has secondary interests. But their primary interest is Daesh,” Biden said.

Biden said he hasn’t spoken to Putin in the better part of a year, but he’s gathered his information on the Russian leader from speaking to Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

“Putin is coming to the realization that Assad should transition out,” Biden said. “Everybody is moving off of their absolute positions and moving toward what everybody intuitively knows. There’s no way that Assad can hold that country together and not continue to be a magnet for terrorism. And I think that’s become clear to everyone.”

Hollande, who’s headed to Moscow on Thursday to try to broker some kind of working relationship between Obama and Putin, kept mostly to the show of solidarity theater and lack of details on the response himself.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Hollande said, the French were all Americans, and after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, Americans were all French, Hollande said.

“Our two peoples together merged as one, sharing the same emotion and same willingness to fight for freedom,” Hollande said.