President Barack Obama is in a bind entirely of his own making.

From the very minute that Paris was mercilessly attacked and at least 130 people were killed, including an American, this president treated that nightmare as a set back to his own domestic and foreign affairs agenda. He specifically called it as much in his first opportunity to address the bloodshed in Paris. In a peevish press availability on foreign soil, Obama displayed an arrogant contempt for a press corps that had the temerity to question his competence on matters related to national security. Curtly, he scolded reporters for their incredulity, admonished Republicans for their hard-heartedness and bigotry, and pledged to forge ahead with a failed strategy undaunted. In the week that elapsed, prominent Democratic presidential aspirants have been struggling to define how their anti-ISIS strategy would diverge from the president’s. Meanwhile, these Democrats simultaneously reprimanded the GOP for having the gall to put a temporary hold on even the trickle of refugees streaming in from the hellhole that Syria has become and for calling radical Islam “radical Islam.” This arrogant self-regard even manifested itself in a Democratic National Committee web-based advertisement criticizing Republicans for using this supposedly crude term. It has all backfired spectacularly.

The latest ABC News-Washington Post poll revealed the extent to which the Paris attacks have put the president and his party in an unenviable position. Obama’s approval rating on the matter of terrorism has plummeted to 40 percent with 54 percent disapproving, the lowest this poll has ever registered. 73 percent of respondents support stronger participation from the United States in the war against ISIS; another 73 percent approved of an increased tempo to U.S. air strikes and 60 percent backed the use of ground troops against the Islamic State. 59 percent of those surveyed, including 53 percent to self-described Democrats, say that the United States is at war with “radical Islam.” Just 37 percent of those polled disagree. Only 43 percent favor taking in more Syrian refugees while 54 percent of respondents are opposed. Most strikingly, 81 percent of those surveyed expect a “major terrorist attack” in the United States. “It has been higher just once in eight previous polls since December 2001,” ABC News reported, “85 percent in July 2005, after terrorist attacks on the London transit system.”

With over 31 governors symbolically rejecting the resettlement of Syrian refugees into their states and with a veto-proof majority of Republicans and Democrats in the House voting for a bill that enhances background checks on those seeking refugee status, the president’s back is against the wall. He has promised to veto such modest legislation, but it’s unlikely he will be able to maintain that threat if a Senate Democrat-led filibuster is broken. Ultimately, however, the refugee issue is a sideshow. It is an effort by a public that has lost all faith in the president to competently manage American national security and foreign affairs to take back some of that authority. But this is a futile effort. The power to make war and to safeguard the country against foreign threats rests with the executive. That’s why the Republican Congress should use its power and the urgency of the moment to compel the president to get serious about the war on ISIS.

The threats to Europe and ultimately America will not end until the terrorist safe haven in Iraq and Syria is dismantled. The refugee crisis destabilizing Europe and creating political turmoil in the United States will not abate until the nightmare in Syria is contained and the conditions compelling refugees to flee that war-torn country are mitigated. Any strategy to preserve national security must begin with a strategy to roll back and ultimately neutralize ISIS. And, in the absence of another catastrophic attack on an allied nation, time is fleeting to compel this president to perform his duties as commander-in-chief.

In the immediate wake of the beheading of Americans by ISIS militants, 62 percent of those surveyed by Quinnipiac University — including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, as well as all genders and age groups – supported sending additional ground forces to fight ISIS in Iraq. When it became clear to the public that ISIS cannot be destroyed without clearing out the Syrian vipers’ nest, this support ebbed. The farther away Americans drifted from that assault on U.S. citizens and sovereignty, the more Americans forgot about the looming threat to their security. The Republican-led Congress should act and finally formalize the need to take on ISIS in its myriad theaters by crafting and passing a new authorization to use military force specific to this new threat. Lindsey Graham might be disappointed by the fact that Republicans are unlikely to be united in support for a new AUMF unlimited by time and space, geography or targets, but it is irresponsible for Republicans to continue to abdicate their role in authorizing military conduct in some circumspect form.

The effort to compel Barack Obama to serve in the role to which the American people elected him may fail. The new AUMF will, however, shape the debate around the war in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and wherever else the ISIS threat spills in the next 14 months ahead of the presidential election. The next president will inherit this war, and it is the prerogative of the Congress to ensure that this mission is not forgotten.

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