Obama's Stuttering Covert War

[Geee]

American Spectator:

President Obama's piecemeal approach to war reminds us of nothing at all. The Iraq withdrawal, the ongoing pullout from Afghanistan, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and his now-publicized "kill list" program using drones to bomb individual terrorists appear disconnected from any overall strategy to end the threat of Islamic terrorism.

Obama's approach to Iran is consistent with his overall incoherence. On one hand, he is doing everything possible to block an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear weapons program. On the other, as we learned seventeen days ago from the New York Times, Obama has engaged in a covert cyberwar against that same objective.

The president would argue that under our outdated laws, a cyber attack isn't even an act of war. But Carl von Clausewitz's "On War" defines war as "an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." The cyber attacks on Iran are clearly an act of force to compel Iran to stop enriching uranium, imposing our will and Israel's. They were acts of war by any logical measure.

The problem that results from Obama's lack of cohesion is twofold. First, a covert war is most effective when it is covert, not advertised on the Times' front page. Second, if the covert war is to compel a result that doesn't disappear in a few weeks or months, it has to be carried out until the desired goal is achieved.

Covert operations such as the cyber attacks on Iran are authorized by "Presidential Determinations," which are supposed to be shared with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in recognition of Congress's constitutional power over the conduct of wars. Presumably the Determination authorizing the covert cyber attack stated the objective of blocking Iran from achieving nuclear weapons.