Kaine seeks Senate approval for limited use of force against ISIL

Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., introduced legislation Wednesday to authorize limited use of military force against the Islamic State, in response to President Barack Obama’s speech on U.S. strategy for dealing with the terror group.

Islamic State poses a serious and imminent threat to stability in Iraq, Syria and regional neighbors, said Kaine, a member of the Armed Services Committee and chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs.

“They are better resourced than any terrorist organization we have faced, in terms of the amount of money and capacity that they have,” Kaine said in a phone interview.

However, he also said that some of the limited airstrikes that the president undertook in August “slowed their momentum down and demonstrated that they are not invulnerable.”

The proposal supports Obama’s key pillars: a multinational effort to destroy the Islamic State; the use of force in a campaign of airstrikes against the group in Iraq and Syria; and backing vetted forces in these nations, including Iraqi security forces, Kurdish fighters and non-terrorist opposition groups.

But Kaine’s measure also limits the authorization. It would be limited to one year — forcing Congress to renew it — and it would not allow the use of combat troops on the ground. It would repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force to avoid “dueling resolutions” and it would limit the use of force only to Islamic State or groups that are directly engaged in the fight alongside the organization.

Kaine said the limitations are partly drawn from the president’s speech “and the lessons that we should have learned from the last 13 years” of fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Kaine emphasized the importance of congressional approval of any U.S. military action and stressed that regional ground support is critical to the success of the mission. He said “regional actors” must “show their willingness to stand up against ISIL extremism,” referring to the terror group by another name.

Kaine’s proposal would permit the deployment of special forces to engage in counterterrorism operations or to rescue American personnel.

Kaine said that his authorization is narrower than two measures introduced in the Senate and a recent proposal by Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-10th, that would authorize military force against not just Islamic State, but al-Qaida and its affiliates Boko Haram, al-Shabab and a number of other terrorist organizations.

Last year, Kaine advocated the use of force against President Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war — a strategy that not all Senate Democrats supported, even after Assad’s alleged use of poisoned gas against civilians.

“Our military has to play an important role in the world to keep Americans safe,” Kaine said in the interview. But a global leadership role also includes diplomacy, economics and moral example, he said.

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