But Can ISIS Harm Us?

Arguing against intervention in Iraq, Aaron David Miller downplays the threat posed to Americans:

[I]t is unlikely that it will come to rule Syria or Iraq in full, let alone fulfill its fantasy of creating an Islamic caliphate. … Instead, it is likely that ISIS will become a major counterterrorism problem for the region, and perhaps for Europe. As for striking America, that’s a more complicated issue. It didn’t work out so well for al Qaeda’s central operations, as recent history shows. And as my Foreign Policy colleague Micah Zenko reminds us, in 2013 there were 17,800 global fatalities due to terrorism, but only 16 of those were Americans. Although preventing attacks is the most important foreign policy priority, bar none, terrorism — including from ISIS – just isn’t a strategic threat to the homeland right now.

Ambinder thinks Obama is responding to the threat, such as it is, pretty astutely:

ISIS’ anti-American bluster is worth noting, as are its direct ties to lethal insurgents elsewhere. But surely the way to expedite the fermentation of the next wave of Sunni terrorism is for the U.S. to start fighting Sunnis.

Interestingly enough, the central tenet of President Obama’s counter-terrorism policy is NOT to deny terrorists safe havens. Our counter-terrorism policy is mocked by critics as little more than a game of whack-a-mole. And they’re right. A terrorist pops up here; so here is where you send the drone. Mole whacked. …

If all the terrorists in the world found themselves attracted to a caliphate between Syria, Kurdistan and Iraq, they would make the country a ripe target for later, purposeful intervention by the United States. Right now, the threats to the U.S. are bluster. Keeping a response to an intelligence and special operations force surge to Iraq is a good way to make sure that, whatever happens — and really, there is no way of knowing what ISIS will look like in a month, or two — the U.S. will have its eyes and ears on a potential threat.

But Aki Peritz is worried about “bleedout”, especially in Europe, as Western jihadis come home from the fight:

There are troubling signs that bleedout from the Syria conflict might already be occurring. Just this year, an attack on a Jewish center in Brussels that left four people dead was reportedly the handiwork of a Syrian returnee. In Kosovo last November, local authorities arrested several individuals, including two Syria vets, who were plotting an unspecified terrorist attack. More ominously, French authorities busted another Syrian returnee in Cannes for building a one-kilogram bomb filled with the high explosive TATP—right out of the al Qaeda playbook.

Multiple investigations remain ongoing to determine whether Syrian extremist groups specifically greenlighted any of these operations. But for a jihadist organization to spare 100 or 200 foreign fighters to return to their home countries to carry out operations, however, doesn’t require a stretch of the imagination.