Struggling to gauge threat, even as U.S. prepares to act
WASHINGTON — The violent ambitions of the Islamic State have been condemned across the world: in Europe and the Middle East, by Sunni nations and Shiite ones, and by sworn enemies like Israel and Iran. Even Pope Francis has joined the call for the group to be stopped.
But as President Barack Obama prepares to send the United States on what could be a yearslong military campaign against the militant group, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that it poses no immediate threat to the United States.
Some officials and terrorism experts believe that the actual danger posed by Islamic State has been distorted in hours of television punditry and alarmist statements by politicians, and that there has been little substantive public debate about the unintended consequences of expanding U.S. military action in the Middle East.
Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department’s top counterterrorism advisor during Obama’s first term, said that the public discussion about the Islamic State threat has been a “farce,” with “members of the Cabinet and top military officers all over the place describing the threat in lurid terms that are not justified.”
“It’s hard to imagine a better indication of the ability of elected officials and TV talking heads to spin the public into a panic, with claims that the nation is honeycombed with sleeper cells, that operatives are streaming across the border into Texas or that the group will soon be spraying Ebola virus on mass transit systems — all on the basis of no corroborated information,” said Benjamin, who is now a scholar at Dartmouth College.
Obama has spent years urging caution about the perils of wading into the Syrian civil war, a position that has led critics to argue that his inaction has contributed to the death and chaos there. Now, he faces criticism that he has become caught up in a rush to war with no clear vision for how the fighting will end.
In his speech Wednesday night, the president acknowledged that intelligence agencies have not detected any specific plots aimed at the United States. Islamic State is a regional threat, he said, but if the group is left unchecked it could ultimately directly threaten the country.
Some U.S. officials warn of the potential danger of a prolonged military campaign in the Middle East, led by the United States, and say there are risks that escalating air- strikes could do the opposite of what they are intended to do: reduce the threat of terrorism to U.S. soil.
In recent days, U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence officials have sought to tamp down the political speech used to describe the threat from Islamic State — the wealthy militant army that has seized wide portions of two countries and attracted thousands of foreign fighters who some officials fear could at some point be sent home to carry out attacks — with a more nuanced assessment of its weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
“As formidable as ISIL is as group, it is not invincible,” Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said last week, using an alternate name for the group. “ISIL is not al Qaeda pre-9/11” with cells operating in Europe, Southeast Asia and the United States.
But a chorus of voices demanding tough action to blunt the advances of Islamic State - a chorus that has grown louder with the recent release of videos showing the beheadings of U.S. journalists — appears to have had a substantial effect on public opinion. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted Sept. 3-7 reveals that nearly half of the country thinks the United States is more at risk of a major terrorist attack than it was before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
While the Islamic State may have long-term aspirations for war with the United States, the group’s immediate focus is forming an Islamic state under a puritanical version of Sunni Islam.
U.S. officials have said publicly that their greatest fear is that Islamic State has inspired radicals in the West. The concern is that jihadists with U.S. or European passports will fight alongside it or other terrorist groups in Syria, then return home trained to carry out an attack of their choosing. It is not clear that airstrikes against Islamic State will, at least in the short term, diminish that threat.
Even a limited air campaign could play into an Islamic State narrative that U.S. infidels were intervening on behalf of apostate governments in Iraq and Syria. Airstrikes are risky because the new Shiite-led government in Iraq is unsettled, officials say. Under Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, the government inflamed sectarian tensions, enraging Sunnis who are not natural allies of Islamic State. If U.S. airstrikes are seen as supporting the Iraqi government against the Sunnis, bombings could become Islamic State recruiting tools.
“We cannot be seen as the Shiite air force,” one security official said.