Why Are We So Quick To Want To Go To War?

“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.” -Herbert Hoover

The terror attacks this past week in Paris have dramatically reignited the lingering debate over the best course of action for defeating ISIS (which has been embedded in sections of Iraq and Syria for over a year).  While President Obama seems intent on "staying the course" regarding the current strategy (to provide military and intelligence support for allied groups already living in the region), many other politicians have begun calling for a much more direct confrontation with the so-called "Islamic State."  The desire to avenge those killed in Paris (not to mention Beirut and Baghdad, which few seem to mention) is understandable.  As is the frustration with the slow progress of the current strategy.  But does one major successful attack on a European city truly justify another massive armed intervention in Iraq?  This week's post will examine a few theories to try to understand why Americans seem so trigger happy in regards to the use of military force. 

Obama Defending His Strategy After The Paris Attacks

As much as we may not like to admit it, it should come as no surprise that there is a large cultural divide between the American population and its military.  Those whose lives involve boring commutes, mundane work, and uneventful evenings will probably never truly understand what it is like to be in combat (or to sign away your rights for five years).  On the other hand, those who have spent their entire adult life in the military can sometimes be vastly out of touch with America's rapidly changing society.  Most people seem to either blindly glorify the military or blindly vilify it, while portrayals of veterans seem to either show them as infallible heroes or damaged victims of combat.  Neither of these views are helpful.

Neither Is This

In The New American Militarism, Andrew Bacevich discusses how this divide is causing serious damage to America's domestic and foreign policy.  In conflicts since the beginning of the Cold War, the American public is increasingly becoming detached from the effects of warfare.  In essence, the American public doesn't understand the true effects of war anymore because the population no longer feels the effects of war.  When America entered the Second World War, for instance, the population experienced constant reminders of the war in daily life.  The draft, rationing, and community war planning organizations all reminded people that war had real and measurable effects for everyone involved.  Nearly every society in history has experienced warfare as a major, life changing event.  Now, as a nation we no longer feel the effects of war in daily life.  The invasion of Iraq commenced without any of these reminders (nobody was drafted, taxes remained the same).  As a result, few people felt any real consequences of the Iraq war besides possibly knowing someone in the military.  Since people don't see the consequences of war anymore, people might become quick to jump to a military solution for global problems.

Go Read It!

The other issue Bacevich mentions is that the American public is quick to forget previous military failures, only taking as cannon the successes of previous military campaigns.  The public tends to cling to reminders of past "stunning" military successes like the Second World War or the First Gulf War, thinking that marching an army into the enemy's capital will mean a clean and decisive military success.  Why bother with long and boring diplomacy when smashing the enemy to bits works better? (In most cases it doesn't.)  Fortunately, the harsh lessons of the Iraq war has helped change this mentality.  However, many people believe that just because the United States has by far the most powerful and advanced military that this guarantees victory.  As Bacevich argues, we assume that our dominant military position is a measure of our inherent greatness as a nation and an affirmation of our values (which we believe should, inherently, be imposed on the world).  On a conventional battlefield this power would likely translate into success, but modern unconventional battles (and especially the fight against ISIS) require far more than just raw power.

How Did That Work Out Again?

This isn't to say that everyone in favor of large-scale military action is ignorant of the horrors of war or the appropriate applications of force in achieving policy goals.  There are a number of senior military officials who support large scale operations to eliminate ISIS.  These individuals understand the sacrifice inherent in warfare.  America's military personnel typically aren't sadists.  They realize that sometimes violence is needed in order to protect the innocent and bring about order.  Nearly everyone recognizes that it will take violence to uproot ISIS from its strongholds, the question is whether the Americans, Arabs, Turks, Kurds, or some combination of these should be the ones to do it. 

In this decision, the American public ought to be very careful and judicious about decisions to go to war.  We are quick to "like" a picture of a soldier's homecoming or say "Thank you for your service" to someone in uniform on Veteran's day.  But do we really understand what that service means?  Months of training, years of living each day on the government's schedule, (not to mention the physical and psychological pain of death or injury sustained from combat) are all wrapped up in the soldier's experience.  We go out of our way to show how much we love the soldiers, but then ignore their needs once they return.  It would be disingenuous to engage in these (self-congratulatory) acts of Facebook patriotism while still voting every time to send these people into battle at every opportunity.  If we presume to have the power to make a decision as complex and dangerous as going to war, shouldn't we at least be able to name the current leader of ISIS?

Hint: It's This Guy

In all, the beauty of American democracy is that the average citizen gets to have some input (albeit indirectly) into decisions like sending its military into combat.  But this is also its curse.  When contemplating a decision like going to war, we ought to remember that war has real and profound effects on both the soldiers fighting it and the people caught in the middle.  This isn't a decision to be made just because we are upset about our allies being attacked or because some have grown impatient regarding the current strategy.  Instead, this decision should be made after careful considerations of all of the benefits and drawbacks of a large-scale sustained commitment.  There are several different courses of action to take against ISIS, so we ought to investigate all of them before immediately jumping to the most interventionist.  You wouldn't presume to tell a cardiologist the best treatment for coronary artery disease, so we shouldn't presume to know how to "solve" the situation in Syria and Iraq without learning about it first. 

TL;DR: The American public hardly feels the true effects of war anymore, making it easy to send someone else to war when some have never had to personally endure it.

The Grand Delusions Of Sykes-Picot

This week's post comes to us from friend and colleague Stephen Howard.  Stephen is a recent graduate of Political Science and International Relations at South Dakota State University.  His primary emphasis includes the modern Middle East.

Literally Drawing Lines In The Sand

In a recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine, multiple foreign policy analysts discussed the diminishing influence of the United States in Middle East politics.  They also debated whether this is in response to the U.S.-China relationship, the cost-benefit relationship the U.S. has with the Middle East, or some other change in its grand strategy.  As each author points out, this refocusing on other regions of the world is not a fantasy; American influence is truly waning, and policymakers and statesmen around the world need to start considering the impact of a U.S. withdrawal on the future of Middle East states. Most of these articles also presented prescriptions on how to best cope with this new reality. One of the articles by Ali Khedery, Iraq in Pieces, brings up a solution that has long been discussed in the west: the dissolution of the "Sykes-Picot borders" in favor of more ethnic/religious realities. He advocates not exclusively for the dissolution of conventional borders, but more generally for the devolution of powers from the central government of each state to the multitude of nations that inhabit them. In this ‘power sharing’ agreement, each nation would hold sway over the territory they nominally control in the state.  This would divide both Iraq and Syria among sectarian and ethnic lines in hopes of alleviating the Sunni/Shia/Kurd divide within each state. This is a solution, though, which will only further destabilize the region.

Looks About The Same 100 Years Later

Since shortly after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, this idea of separating Iraq into three distinct entities has been floating around Western foreign policy circles. This seems only natural, as Iraq is at the end of the day an artificial construct which was created by the ill fated Sykes-Picot agreement nearly one hundred years ago (and was originally imposed by British and French imperialism). This was done with little regard for the people who lived there or their customs.  Instead, this process was used predominantly to give the imperial powers who controlled the area the best ability to govern. Giving the territory back to each ethnic group who inhabited them originally seems to make some sense in this context, but almost everything has changed in the one hundred years since then.

Westerners still have the idea that any stable state is generally a nation-state, and the rest of the world needs to copy this model in order to advance. But this idea stems from the homogeneous nature of Europe’s states which emerged after hundreds of years of war, forced migration, and state sponsored ethnic purges. The states themselves were only formalized by the Treaty of Westphalia around 300 years ago now, and the distinct nations within them only emerging during the Napoleonic Wars. These ideas, while not exclusive to Europe anymore, are not always the de-facto way states are formed around the rest of the world. A single state can easily now have more than one "nation" in it as China, Russia, Nigeria, and even the United States have shown. Imposing the nation-state on states or nations who have been politically defined for one hundred years is now no better than a second re-imposition of Sykes-Picot under similar circumstances. 

Blame The French!

The first major problem with dividing Iraq or Syria is the demarcation of borders, and the ‘nation-state’ problem. It is true that over the past ten years, each region in Iraq and Syria has become more homogeneous and defined due to violence and migration.  However, there are still considerable minority populations of Sunni and Shia living in opposite dominated areas, to say nothing of the other minorities who inhabit these areas. If Iraq or Syria were to be split into autonomous nation-states in the way Europe has done, or even self-governing regions within the Iraqi/Syrian state structure, these minorities would be trapped in areas of governance in which they have almost no representation (think about being a Democrat in rural South Dakota, or a Republican in St. Paul).  Additionally, government policies would have every reason to discriminate against them.  As Hannah Arent famously described of the Jews prior to WWII, they were a nation without a state. They then belonged to none of the nation-states that dominated Europe, as they could not belong to the ‘French’, ‘German’, or any other state without claiming nationality of the same. I don’t need to describe what this led to for the Jews, with nowhere to go but everyone wanting to get rid of them. 

*A Rough Approximation

 The same problem persists today with the Roma people, showing the nation-state has yet to solve its problem of inherently discriminatory policies.  In short, these would be the autonomous regions created within Iraq and Syria, and the same problems which plague the Europeans would plague the Arabs and Kurds as well. It is not enough to say that if they don’t like where they live they can migrate- the people of Syria don’t like living in civil war but neither the West or East seem to care enough. States are inherently selfish, and accepting refugees is a task that most would rather not choose if they had the opportunity. These disenfranchised people are the perfect recruitment targets for groups like self proclaimed Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and other non-governmental militant organizations.

The Roma People Of Europe

The second major problem is simply "realist" International Relations theory: raison d’etat (reasons of state). This term is better suited to reasons of "nation" in this case, but the principal is the same. Coined by Cardinal Richilou nearly three hundred years ago, this raison d’etat means that a state must do what it can for its own existence, since its existence is never assured. A state, then, has no friends, it only has opportunities and threats (hence "realist). This happens for two reasons. One, if a state or nation is perceived as weak or forgiving on the international scene, it will be taken advantage of. This is because, as political analyst John Mearsheimer discusses in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, states can never be assured of the intentions of others, all have some offensive capability and they will always be looking to exploit and capitalize on weakness in order to preserve their own security. The second reason stems from that old and hated book, The Leviathan.  In it, Thomas Hobbes creates the first idea of a social contract. Essentially, the ruler of any state is granted his power ultimately from the people of that state and is responsible only to them. Because this social contract is not created with any other state or nation, the ruler has a mandate to work for the improvement of his/her people, even if it comes at the cost of someone else.  Drawing "lines in the sand" between rival factions would only further increase the instability inherent in these political realities.

First Thing's First I'm A Realist.

So where will these realist conflicts come from?  Primarily, resources and territory. Any government worth its salt will try to gain as much access natural resources as possible, even at high cost, for the presumed benefit it will give them. In the case of Iraq, this will come not only from oil, but from the oil infrastructure as well. A single refinery or oil well can be the cause of enormous strife. Arable land (yes there is some of that in Syria and Iraq), other infrastructure systems, and cities, all can be major sources of conflict.  But conflict will also come from the external forces which will drive these nations apart.  Mainly, the question of "who will dominate who?" in the region.  For instance, an Iranian backed Shia nation will naturally compete for power with a Saudi backed Sunni nation. This is something which already occurs today, but not within the framework of competing states. Instead of a low-grade war for influence over the central government, this would have every opportunity to turn into all-out war between internationally recognized nation-states with the possibility of drawing the Saudis and Iranians to war against each other. Consider the case of Yemen, where a internal civil war was taken advantage of by BOTH sides and made into a sort of proxy war. This is even more surprising since the Iranians do not even have a real stake in this issue.  The funding they provide for the Houthi rebels is, as described by Farea al-Muslimi “...the cheapest middle finger [Iran] could give to Saudi Arabia”. With strategically important nations like Iraq or Syria at stake, you can bet your life savings that both sides will be much more invested in the outcome of a conflict.

The Conflict In Yemen

The third major problem with separating each ‘nation’ within Iraq is that it hurts any chances of a true state leader emerging. As stated before, each national leader would be judged based on the nation's interests, and this leader has every reason to not care about anyone else’s interests. Creating homogeneous states means that the leaders have to cater to a smaller and smaller portion of the people, eliminating any need to compromise on issues.  Leaders with no need to compromise become nothing more than populist demagogues, who have no real governing capability and thrive off of conflict (which is, after all, the best motivator). It will be in the interests of these leaders to maintain conflict with their neighbors in order to take advantage of that one thing they are good at- riling the masses into stupidity.

Lastly, and as this blog has previously pointed out in a different context, though the current crisis has congealed each nation into multiple seemingly insoluble masses within a single state, the religion and ethnicity which defines them are only being used for political purposes by opportunists in and around each nation. If these nations were to be given their own state or self governing capability, the seemingly insoluble masses would dissolve among further tribal, regional, or philosophical lines- each being used by the same opportunists to aggrandize their own power. Consider the situation in South Sudan.  After the Christian south declared independence from the Muslim north, the leaders proceeded to divide their new state through further civil wars based on clan ties. This was not the work of some popular opposition, but opportunists seeking to get more power at the expense of the lives of their fellow countrymen. This is the situation which would befall the new self-governing regions in Iraq and Syria (and has ALREADY occurred in Kurdish controlled regions).  The only way to prevent it would be to create the three self governing regions on the template of a dictatorship which tolerates no dissent. This is obviously not ideal either.

The Many Divisions Of Kurdistan

In all, the dissolution of Sykes-Picot is dangerous, and compounds the problems it is intended to solve. A stable, solid Iraq is still seemingly the best option then, especially if the United States is to leave (or at least be less present in) the Middle East. This does not mean that the status quo is a viable option either.  My hat is honestly off to Mr. Khedery for at least suggesting a solution, even though I believe it is wrong. I personally have no solution, or at least no viable solutions. To whomever may read this, let me extol the necessity of formulating a full solution which helps the region in the long term, and acts not just as a short term panacea to allow for less U.S. involvement. It is the people who read blogs like this who need to stop sniping and start building (yes, I know I am being hypocritical). Don’t abandon the people or state of Iraq, Syria, or any other state seemingly thrust into an uncorrectable trajectory. As long as there are minds working at the problem, there will always be hope.

Executive Summary:
Getting rid of Sykes-Picot will only further exacerbate problems in the Middle East, and do nothing to solve U.S. problems in the region.

Don't Panic.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Ramallah, Palestine (West Bank)

 
Paris.  Beirut.  Baghdad.  This has been a bad week.  Terror attacks from the self-described Islamic State (also known as ISIS) have shaken several communities and killed hundreds so far.  Paris, in particular, experienced several simultaneous shooting sprees, bomb blasts, and a hostage situation (which eventually turned into a mass execution).  Truly, the depravity of ISIS knows no bounds.

Salamanca, Spain

Let's make one thing clear right away.  This is not the fault of the hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to escape the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.  For the most part, they want to get as far away from these attacks as they can.  Don't let veiled racism make you think otherwise.  Not that they should have to, but it should also be noted that leading Muslim organizations have fully denounced the attacks as well.  ISIS has its origins in al-Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency, and currently controls large amounts of territory in both Iraq and Syria.  Both France and the United States (among many others) have been working to dismantle the so-called Islamic State.  Though some very recent successes in this effort have been made, progress is still painfully slow. 

Moscow, Russia

So the question on everyone's mind is, of course, why?  As we have investigated before, terror attacks occur due to a number of reasons.  In this case, it appears the attacks have a lot in common with the attacks of September 11th, 2001.  In short, this is about provocation.  ISIS wants to provoke a massive and hostile response by the French government (and its allies) to draw them into conflict against their "state." The ISIS ideology and worldview is essentially apocalyptic.  They are actively looking to bring about their interpretation of the end times, and this depends upon a foreign "infidel" army invading their land.  Like 9/11 did in Afghanistan (and Iraq), they want to recreate the same sort of hellish insurgency which America found itself involved in for over a decade.  This would obviously be disastrous.  We cannot give in to fear and hatred, condemning ourselves to an infinite cycle of violence and suffering.

Tehran, Iran

The other obvious reason for this attack is to take advantage of the refugee situation in Europe.  Several of the terrorists reportedly carried Syrian passports during the attack, likely in a deliberate attempt to increase the already prevalent fear of migrants entering Europe.  Why else would someone carry a passport during a suicide mission and in the Eurozone country where travel is mostly unrestricted?  They want Europeans to lash out against Muslims and migrants (and France already has a history of anti-Islamic policies).  They want Europe to close its borders to migrants, leaving them homeless, hopeless, resentful, and stranded throughout the continent.  Essentially, the perfect recruits for their operations.  Allowing migrants to enter a country (and be given shelter and employment) doesn't necessarily radicalize them, but keeping them out might.

Shanghai, China

It will be hard, but keeping our collective anger and fear from spiraling out of control is possible.  Lebanon, for example, has experienced more than its share of this type of tragedy.   Earlier this week, a series of car bombs detonated in a crowded market in Lebanon's capital of Beirut.  Lebanon has faced the full force of the terror and instability of Syria's war and ISIS, and yet it has managed to stay largely out of the conflict. This is extremely surprising given Lebanon's very tenuous political system, which is a mix of Sunni, Shia, and Christian groups.  The country has had a history of sectarian violence (and a brutal civil war).  If ever there was a place which could devolve into sectarian conflict, it's Lebanon.  Yet, majority populations from all groups have stated they will not allow their country to be torn asunder by the problems of Syria and ISIS.  Despite years of war in neighboring Syria, Lebanon remains (relatively) stable.  We should learn from their example.

Tel Aviv, Israel

Now this doesn't mean we do nothing.  We can and almost certainly will retaliate.  But there is a world of difference between fighting back and launching a full scale invasion or closing off a nation entirely from migrants.  For instance, France could step up its support for operations against ISIS.  They could also launch airstrikes or special operations missions of their own against critical targets.  But the worst thing we could do at this critical moment is to panic.  To lose our sense of security completely and rush into war would give these people exactly what they are looking for.  To think that a full scale war is the appropriate response, that our collective vengeance, our righteous indignation, and our moral high ground will miraculously translate into the complete and utter capitulation of an apocalyptic death cult like ISIS is exceedingly naive.

Budapest, Hungary

Likewise, closing borders and allowing ourselves to be consumed by rampant xenophobia only fans the flames of this ideological conflict.  America tried these tactics once, and all it did was help create the circumstances we find ourselves in now.  Let us not confuse a rational response with inaction or weakness.  The stronger power knows when to use force and when to show restraint.  Otherwise, we risk playing into ISIS's prophecy, creating the bloody and apocalyptic battle they have been hoping for all along.

Bethlehem, Palestine (West Bank)

In all, these tragedies remind us that the struggle to end radical ideologies is far from over.  Though it has been said a thousand times on this blog, most Muslims despise ISIS.  They fear for their lives just as everyone else (ISIS doesn't spare Muslims from their wrath after all) and those who are fleeing the region do some predominantly out of a desire to escape terror, not bring it along.  Finally, remember that terror attacks are extremely rare (though highly publicized).  You are still more likely to drown in a bathtub than to be harmed by a terrorist attack.  This week, let's show solidarity with all of the victims of ISIS's wanton destruction.  We are all French, and Lebanese, and Iraqi, and Syrian.  Their hollow and inept ideology will someday crumble under the weight of its own brutality.  In the meantime, don't panic.

TL;DR: Now is the true test of our values.  Do we stand by the ideals of liberté, égalité, and fraternité?  Or will we discard these in the name of vengeance and security?

Photos courtesy of NPR News.

America's Constantly Shifting Strategy In The Middle East

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." -Anonymous

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest

Last week, President Obama announced a critical new development in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  After several largely unsuccessful attempts to remove ISIS from power which involved arming "allied" rebel groups and launching airstrikes, U.S. military personnel will be re-entering the region with (some) troops on the ground.  Despite numerous reassurances that this would not happen, the White House has potentially opened the door into a much more direct (and dangerous) combat role.  Special forces soldiers will now be conducting training missions (and probably also covert operations) within Syria (and likely Iraq too).  This is designed to support the allied Kurdish and Arab forces to help them directly confront ISIS forces.  Though the administration has not said these forces will be supporting anti-Assad fighters in Syria, it is likely they will probably end up assisting in the proxy war against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad while they are there.  So is this the start of a new chapter in America's military involvement in the Middle East, or just another bad sequel?

Not That Bad I Hope

In case you haven't been keeping up on events in Syria and Iraq (shame!), here is one of our previous posts to help explain things.  Currently, the United States is actively engaged in a campaign of supporting the (not terrorist) forces fighting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, as well as the forces fighting the fundamentalist group known as ISIS.  Russia, for its part, is supporting Assad (and pretending to fight ISIS), making this whole situation somewhat reminiscent of the proxy wars of the Cold War.  Assad has slowly been losing ground in the fight against his rivals over the past four years.  However, the American backed forces have also had their share of difficulties.  With recent attempts to train rebel forces falling flat and airstrikes against ISIS being only moderately effective, it seems that the U.S. will now look to Special Forces operations to help tip the balance of the fight.

For All Those Who Don't Know What's Happening In Syria

But wait, didn't Obama's Authorization for the Use of Military Force say we wouldn't get involved in a land war in Asia?  Not quite.  The text of the authorization states that America would not become involved in "enduring offensive ground combat operations."  This would seem to preclude large armored and infantry divisions, but technically allows for small, covert Special Forces units to be deployed.  That being said, the administration did make several promises that American "boots on the ground" would not be used.  Despite the administration's best semantic gymnastics this week, the move to deploy Special Forces to the region is a clear departure from this previous strategy.  Some are criticizing the administration for breaking one of it's most important promises.  But then again, things didn't look nearly as bad as they do now when those promises were first made.

A Politician Changing His Mind??

What is the U.S. hoping to gain from this endeavor?  In addition to more direct oversight of allied training programs, this would allow Special Forces units to directly support allied forces in operations against ISIS.  (Though the administration flatly denies that there will be combat missions, it seems very clear that this would be occurring behind the scenes.) The ultimate goal is to destroy the central governing power of ISIS and allow Sunni tribes (and Kurdish factions) to retake control of these regions.  However, this will likely also be a means for the U.S. to support its allies in the fight against Assad.  This would greatly improve America's bargaining power in negotiating a settlement of the devastating Syrian Civil War.  Negotiations are going on right now in Vienna to attempt to reach a resolution of the fighting, though immediate progress is unlikely.

It's Complicated

So far, this doesn't sound too bad, right?  A bunch of Special Forces units conduct secret missions and in return America gets to help remove ISIS, re-stabilize the region, and (possibly) negotiate the departure of Assad from Syria.  The problem with this arises in a phenomenon called mission creep.  This is the idea that as time goes on, military forces will become more and more involved in a conflict and its mission will start to creep into new areas.  Like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water, this could (in the most extreme scenario) mean an escalation of forces into a sustained ground presence or even the deployment of entire military divisions.  It is unlikely the current administration would allow things to escalate to this level, but other scenarios can place the U.S. in a difficult position here.  For instance, American soldiers could be killed or captured, bringing a new dynamic into an already extremely complicated situation.

How is this strategy different from the Iraq invasion of 2003?   We have already examined the lead up to the Iraq war in a series of earlier posts, so check these out to get the basics of Iraq in 2003.  Though the end goal appears to be similar (removing terrorist havens and having U.S.-friendly groups control the region), the main departure seems to be about strategy.  From the very beginning, this campaign has been geared towards helping the people help themselves rather than assuming that the American military can do it all alone.  This is a much more subtle and behind-the-scenes approach to achieving its objectives, and will likely be more effective in the long run than rolling into Ramadi with tanks and troops.

Not Exactly A Low-Key Operation

The biggest question of all (and one that was hauntingly absent from the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq) is this: what happens if the U.S. wins?  Is ISIS territory in Iraq going to be given back to the Iraqi government to administer (on that note can they even administer it?).  What about ISIS territory in Syria?  Will this be decided in the peace talks over the future of Assad?  Who will pay for the reconstruction of two devastated countries?  Will there even be a reconstruction effort, or will the world quickly forget about Iraq and Syria once the conflict is finally over (leaving in place the same disastrous social, economic, and educational deficiencies which helped give rise to ISIS in the first place)?  War is infinitely complicated, and there are still no clearly defined outcomes from the administration on this plan.  Dropping "boots on the ground" in Syria and Iraq isn't necessarily a bad idea if done correctly.  But if there isn't a clearly defined, measurable, and flexible plan for the post-conflict process, how will this be any different from previous efforts in the region?

Syrian Civil War Peace Talks (With A Surprising Lack Of Syrians Present)

Perhaps the American military's grand strategy in the Middle East is doomed from the start.  This strategy works on the underlying assumption that America's dominant military, diplomatic, and economic power can bring others to do what America wants them to do.  This tends to work well for nation-states, but mostly falls apart on a community or personal level (which is far more important in this region.  If the military's end goal is simply to bring stability, then maybe there is a shot at achieving this.  But if the military goes into this with naive and grandiose dreams of creating an America-friendly, Sunni-Shia paradise (as we did in the 2003 invasion), then we shouldn't be surprised when such efforts fail disastrously.  This isn't to say that such a nation is an impossibility, but it requires several decades of educational, economic, social, and political stability and development before such a dream can become viable.  Gone are the days when military victory meant large battles, surrendering armies, and clean power transfers.  The types of conflicts we find ourselves in now involve years of careful work, meticulous planning, and excruciating patience.  Even in the best case scenario, we are in for a long fight.

Ultimately, history (and the America public) will judge the wisdom of the current approach towards fighting America's enemies.  If this strategy is executed intelligently and with an appreciation of the complex and competing interests of local populations in the region, this new chapter in America's military involvement in Iraq could become our Return of the Jedi.  But if this is only a means to a larger military operation to fundamentally alter the Middle East, ending in quagmire and failed states, Iraq War III might turn out more like the Godfather Part III. 

Above: Obama

Tl;DR:  Expect things to get a lot worse in Iraq and Syria before they get better.