The Obama administration compares ISIS to cancer, and the analogy offers insights into defeating the extremists
President Barack Obama and other members of his administration have long labeled the Islamic State as a “cancer” that must be eliminated. Destroying ideological fervor is not easy, and extending the president’s analogy can offer a useful way for determining strategies for defeating the Islamic State extremists once and for all, explains Bennett Ramberg, who served in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the U.S. Department of State during the George H.W. Bush administration. Ramberg lists the promises and limits of strategies while comparing invasive surgery to sending ground troops to the region, radiation to airstrikes, and stem-cell treatment to promotion of economic development and good governance. Modern treatments for cancer require multi-pronged approaches, and so does the battle against extremism, with Ramberg concluding that each element is critical for success.
An aircraft lands after missions targeting the Islamic State in Iraq from the deck of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf on Aug. 10, 2014. AP Photo/Hasan Jamali
LOS ANGELES—The spate of attacks led or inspired by the Islamic State from Europe to Jakarta has upended confidence that governments around the globe have effective strategies to defeat the terrorist movement. Pessimism persists despite a series of military defeats and economic blows for ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Reflecting public anxiety, President Barack Obama acknowledged in 2015 that “many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure.” In 2016 interviews, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter compared the ISIS base in the Middle East to a tumor, demonstrating the cancer analogy had embedded in the administration’s thinking: “There are metastases elsewhere—Libya, Afghanistan...”
