The Obama administration surely had legal and political reasons to tiptoe around the word “war,” which evokes a visceral image of comparatively massive — and unpopular — wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president, whose opposition to the former helped him win the White House, has staked part of his legacy on winding down armed conflicts. And a new war against ISIS could be perceived as not only a continuation of the previous operation in Iraq, but also an acknowledgment of its massive failures.
Columbia Journalism Review: Is the US ‘going to war’ against ISIS?, September 16, 2014The Guardian: Obama's legally dubious Isis campaign is just a way to continue perpetual war, September 13, 2014The Atlantic: Is It Peacetime or Wartime in America?, September 11, 2014The Daily Beast: Obama's New War on ISIS May Be Illegal, September 10, 2014
