Is the Obama administration holding back the military in some of its plans to battle ISIS?

An exclusive report by The Daily Beast’s Nancy Yousseff says the administration has nixed plans to go hit ISIS’s Libyan capital and to, in effect, continue battling the expansionist-minded, self-proclaimed terrorist nation-state the way it has been doing.

If correct, this will give ammunition to those who feel the administration is not going after ISIS the way many in the world feel it should and that it continues to underestimate it’s threat and potential reach into Europe — and beyond. It’ll give Republicans a lot of ammunition and is sure to be a question asked of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at future debates. Here’s some of the report:

Despite the growing threat from the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Libya, the Obama administration has turned down a U.S. military plan for an assault on ISIS’s regional hub there, three defense officials told The Daily Beast.
In recent weeks, the U.S. military—led by its Africa and Special Operations Commands—have pushed for more airstrikes and the deployment of elite troops, particularly in the city of Sirte. The hometown of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the city is now under ISIS control and serving as a regional epicenter for the terror group.
The airstrikes would target ISIS resources while a small band of Special Operations Forces would train Libyans to eventually be members of a national army, the officials said.
Weeks ago, defense officials told The New York Times that they were crafting military plans for such strikes, but needed more time to develop intelligence so that they could launch a sustained air campaign on ISIS in Sirte.
But those plans have since been put on the back burner.
“There is little to no appetite for that in this administration,” one defense official explained.
Instead, the U.S. will continue to do occasional strikes that target high value leaders, like the November drone strike that killed Abu Nabil al-Anbari, the then-leader of ISIS in Libya.
“There’s nothing close to happening in terms of a major military operation. It will continue to be strikes like the kind we saw in November against Abu Nabil,” a second defense official explained to The Daily Beast.
The division over what action the U.S. and the international community should take in Libya speaks to the uncertainty about when and where ISIS should be countered.

And many, particularly in Europe, view the Libya base as a threat…to Europe, where ISIS has made it clear it would dearly love to fly its flag in Vatican City, Spain and elsewhere:

For Europe, Libya is uncomfortably close and already a jumping off point for migrants willing to take on the rough Mediterranean waters in search of asylum. ISIS pronouncements have previously pointed out that Rome is nearby.
For the United States, there are major concerns about allowing another ISIS hub to emerge in the region. The Libyan city of Sirte is currently under ISIS control and some believe the terror group seeks to turn Sirte into a center of operations, like Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
Leaders across Europe have hinted that more should be done in Libya but have fallen short on specifics. In an interview with Der Spiegel last month, the German envoy to Libya said: “We simply cannot give up on Libya.”

AND:

At a press conference Tuesday, during this year’s summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, President Obama referred to United Nations efforts to help build a government in Libya, suggesting any military effort could create even more political fractures. On Sunday, a member of Libya’s Presidential Council announced that a list of 13 ministers and five ministers of state had been sent to Libya’s eastern parliament for approval.
But while the president said the U.S. would go after ISIS “anywhere it appeared,” he stopped short of saying the U.S. would expand its effort in Libya unilaterally.
“We will continue to take actions where we’ve got a clear operation and a clear target in mind. And we are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in, in Libya, we take them. At the same time, we’re working diligently with the United Nations to try to get a government in place in Libya,” the president said. “And that’s been a problem.”
Some military officials believe Obama feels that France and Italy, which both have hinted at intervention, should take the lead on any military effort. Both countries were key to the NATO-led campaign in 2011 that led to Gadhafi’s fall. Still others believe the United States wants to limit its war against the Islamic State to Iraq and Syria.

The problem is that while Europe and the administration discuss or wait to see who takes the lead, ISIS could wind up consolidating its base in Libya and in the long run take more than the lead.

graphic via shutterstock.com

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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