President Obama said Friday that the U.S. and its allies must “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists, saying that the terror network could not be simply contained.
“You can’t contain an organization running roughshod through that much territory, causing that much havoc, displacing that many people, killing that many innocents, enslaving that many women. The goal has to be to dismantle them,” the president said during a press conference following the NATO summit in Wales.
{mosads}The president said his administration had been “systematic and methodical” in targeting other terror organizations, and vowed “to dismantle this network … so that they can’t do us harm.”
“We are going to degrade and ultimately defeat (ISIS), the same way that we have gone after al Qaeda, the same way we have gone after the al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia,” Obama said.
Speaking earlier this week in Europe, the present said his objective in approaching ISIS was to shrink the group’s capabilities “to the point where it is a manageable problem” and was “not an ongoing threat to the region.” That led critics to charge that the president was merely looking to rein in the terror group.
But on Friday, Obama offered a far more determined approach, saying of ISIS leaders that the U.S. would “continue to hunt them down the same way we’re doing with remnants of al Qaeda.”
The president also pledged to “act with urgency,” cautioning that he wanted to “make sure we’re doing it right,” and that the U.S. would continue to enlist regional and international partners in the battle.
“My expectation is that we will see friends and allies and partners of ours in the region take action as part of a coalition,” Obama said.
Obama also said the terror network could only be defeated with “a strong ground game” — but that effort would have to come from Iraqis, Syrian moderates and regional actors.
“We will not be placing U.S. ground troops to try to control the areas that are part of the conflict inside of Syria,” Obama said. The president has previously pledged not to return U.S. troops to Iraq.
Describing “absolute conviction that we have to act,” the president said he was confident other countries would step up to the plate. He also said it was “absolutely critical that we have Arab states — and specifically Sunni majority states — that are erecting the kind of extremist nihilism we’re seeing.”
“NATO allies and partners are prepared to join in a broad, international effort to combat the threat posed by [ISIS],” Obama said.