Obama Underscores 'Great Sense of Urgency' in IS Fight
Mary Alice Salinas, Voice of America
President Obama said Monday that he is "confident" the U.S.-led coalition will prevail in its battle against the Islamic State, adding that the militant group is losing ground and its leaders have no place to hide.
"Our message to them is simple: 'You are next,' " he said in a strongly worded statement at the Pentagon after meeting Monday with his national security team on the latest efforts to counter IS.
The president sought to reassure Americans after a deadly attack in San Bernardino, California, earlier this month by a married couple believed to have been inspired by IS, and a bloody massacre in Paris by extremists in November.
The U.S. will continue to lead the global coalition in the effort, which Obama said is moving forward "with a great sense of urgency.”
Obama announced no change in strategy but said coalition forces will continue to search for and kill terrorist leaders, and train and equip Iraqi forces and some of the opposition fighters in Syria who are battling Islamic State militants.
In addition, the U.S. will keep working to disrupt the group's recruitment of fighters, finance operations and propaganda campaigns.
Finally, Obama said, the U.S. will keep up diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the civil war in Syria and bring about a political transition so the coalition can keep its focus on destroying the Islamic State group.
‘We Will Wipe Them Out’
During a rare trip to the Pentagon, the president received an update from his national security team on counter-IS efforts.
After the meeting, Obama said the Islamic State has lost thousands of miles in Syria and ground in Iraq. As the coalition squeezes the militants in the region, the U.S. leader said, the battle must be relentless, but smart, targeting IS "surgically and with precision."
The coalition is destroying Islamic State fighters, bunkers, heavy weapons and bomb-making factories. "We will wipe them out," Obama vowed, adding that the group has not had a successful major offensive operation in Syria or Iraq since midyear.
Moreover, people in the region are seeing the Islamic State "for the thugs and the thieves they are," Obama said, adding that their brutality is repelling local populations.
U.S., Coalition Efforts
Meanwhile, the U.S. will continue to work to further build up international contributions to the coalition's effort to defeat IS.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is heading to the Middle East to secure more military contributions. At home, the Department of Homeland Security is updating its emergency alert system to help Americans stay vigilant and safe, said the president.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president spoke Monday to reassure Americans that the administration is "hard at work" to ensure they are safe and to demonstrate that great progress has been made in the effort to combat the terror group.
Particularly after the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the Obama administration's strategy to degrade and destroy the Islamic State.
Comments
Would highly suggest that all readers take a long look at the responses from CrowBat over on the Syrian military thread....direct and blunt and to the point concerning the total failure of Obama, Kerry and co. in Syria and IMHO actually contributing far more to the chaos there than even Putin now does......written by ne experienced in the area and who has some honest opinions that dovetail with comments posted over the past by Robert Jones.
What lengths will Kerry and Obama go to for "a legacy".......??
Referencing the so called "Iran Deal" that saw Iran ban yesterday over 227 US goods once the sanctions are lifted.......
4 ways Obama admin has collapsed to Iran in last 12 hrs
(1) IAEA/nuke report
(2) Syria
(3) UNSC/missiles
(4) FATF/finance
pic.twitter.com/hlE2AyQEgl
AND Obama is "confident" about his IS strategy.......?
Not clear what he really said but you can smell Kerry's naivety towards Russia.
https://twitter.com/timesofisrael/st...84448005066753 …
Maybe it's better US pulls out completely from the Syrian issue. Kerry acting like Putin's jumpy little sister isn't really helpful.
Can't be stressed enough: #Assad attacks on #Ghouta is terrorism on a very large scale. But let's negotiate... Damn.
ALL of the areas hit by Russia today, except one, are ISIS-free. Perhaps 100+ civilians dead today alone. "Progress"
In less than 30 days, Russia went from denying the FSA ever existed to making up fake FSA Groups that it "supports".
AND this is the so called US foreign policy in Syria...........??????
THEN just what is the US Obama IS strategy---since actually Assad has killed roughly 1000 times more Syrians in the last four years than all IS has killed in Iraq AND Syria combined.......in the last four years.
Just maybe Kerry and Obama should learn German.........
78 day of #RussianAirstrikes in #Syria.
My colleagues in Berlin summarised the actions.
http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/wladimir-putin/kriegsverbrechen-in-s… …
The not so subtle use of the words "war crimes" is often used in this article as a reason politicians should be shying away from anything Putin proposes BUT US leaderships seems to think otherwise........
TO assist the WH in their thinking about Putin--the West and western MSM seems to have glazed over/ignored the following simple fact..........
Russia killed in 78 days of bombings ~570 civilians in Syria including 152 children & 60 women in the past 2 1/2 months --provided by the Syrian Civil Defense figures.
THAT alone is FOUR times what the IS killer team in Paris achieved YET the West says nothing...AND there are no double standards with Western moral values.......
By Kerry and de facto his boss Obama--the acceptance now of the Putin plan actually places the US in full and complete support of a genocidal dictator and the war crimes being committed by Putin in the name of protecting Assad.
IN the last two months over 570 civilians have been directly killed by Russian and Assad AFs, they continue to use thermobarbic, WP and cluster munitions on civilians and strictly civilian targets---schools, market places, residential areas and critical civilian infrastructures ie food and water.
YET Kerry and Obama never say a word......"AND this is US leadership from behind"?????
Never though I would see US FP reflecting the actual support of "genocide and war crimes against humanity".
US retrenchment a la Wilson 1920 ALL over again....
NOTICE Kerry never said a single word concerning the sheer numbers of civilians killed by Putin's AF...not a single word was wasted....telling.
BTW--just a side comment---the reason we have absolutely no push back on the Russian info warfare is that this administration CANNOT push back without revealing their poor foreign policy as a push back would directly challenge Putin and his ME FP......to effectively push
back requires the use of "truth" and this administration has as does Putin a general lack of that single word "truth"......
Propaganda
Pro-regime #map shows, #Assad is ONLY fighting #ISIS in W #Latakia province.
NO ISIS in that province.
When it comes to IS the Obama administration is virtually all talk...do whatever it takes to make it to his legacy is what is defining this President......THAT is the reason for the total Obama ME mess and it is in fact his mess in the entire ME.......
Appears that basically the US has folded to Putin's and Assad's demands...
So basically the US has no valid FP nor does it seem to really care about the ME NOR eastern Ukraine ie the Baltics/Poland anymore.......
No 'regime change' in Syria: After talks in Moscow, Kerry accepts Russian stance on Assad
Fox News 15 Dec
Quote:
MOSCOW – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war.
"The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change," Kerry told reporters in the Russian capital after meeting President Vladimir Putin. A major international conference on Syria would take place later this week in New York, Kerry announced.
Kerry reiterated the U.S. position that Assad, accused by the West of massive human rights violations and chemical weapons attacks, won't be able to steer Syria out of 4 ½ years of conflict.
But after a day of discussions with Assad's key international backer, Kerry said the focus now is "not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad." Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which "Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria."
Kerry's declarations crystallized the evolution in U.S. policy on Assad over the last several months, as the Islamic State group's growing influence in the Middle East has taken priority.
President Barack Obama first called on Assad to leave power in the summer of 2011, with "Assad must go," being a consistent rallying cry. Later, American officials allowed that he wouldn't have to resign on "Day One" of a transition. Now, Assad's stay could be indefinite.
Russia, by contrast, has remained consistent in its view that no foreign government could demand Assad's departure and that Syrians would have to negotiate matters of leadership among themselves. Since late September, it has been bombing terrorist and rebel targets in Syria as part of what the West says is an effort to prop up Assad's government.
Kerry said, "No one should be forced to choose between a dictator and being plagued by terrorists." However, he described the Syrian opposition's demand that Assad must leave as soon as peace talks begin as a "nonstarting position, obviously."
Earlier Tuesday in the Kremlin, Putin noted several "outstanding issues" between Russia and its former Cold War foe. Beyond Assad, these include which rebel groups in Syria should be allowed to participate in the transition process and which should be deemed terrorists, and like the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, be combatted by all.
Jordan is working on finalizing the list of terrorist v. legitimate opposition forces. Representatives of Syria's opposition themselves hope this week to finalize their negotiating team for talks with Assad's government. The U.S., Russia and others hope those talks will begin early next year.
Appearing beside Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hailed what he described as a "big negotiating day," saying the sides advanced efforts to define what a Syrian transition process might look like.
The two countries also have split on Ukraine since Russia's annexation of the Crimea region last year and its ongoing, though diminished, support for separatist rebels in the east of the country. The U.S. has pressed severe economic sanctions against Russia in response and has insisted that Moscow's actions have left it isolated.
But Kerry sang a different tune on Tuesday.
"We don't seek to isolate Russia as a matter of policy, no," Kerry said. The sooner Russia implements a February cease-fire that calls for withdrawal of Russian forces and materiel and a release of all prisoners, he said, the sooner that "sanctions can be rolled back."
The world is better off when Russia and the U.S. work together, he added, calling Obama and Putin's current cooperation a "sign of maturity."
"There is no policy of the United States, per se, to isolate Russia," Kerry stressed.
AGAIN a totally failed decision---just exactly how is it that there will be "fair, free, verifiable and uninhibited elections" inside the current Syria for a new President---the only place that can occur is that area currently held by Assad.
"So is now Obama actually recognizing the right for the IS held areas to vote in so called democratic elections IF IS wants to??"--this PR appears to say exactly that.
BECAUSE that is exactly what Putin calls for under the so called Putin "Syrian transition plan"......
AS long as this administration --meaning Obama, DoS, the NSC and the DNI DO not fully understand the that we are seeing in the ME the full scale blow up of the Sunni Shia Conflict that is now reaching a global perspective with over 14 Shia nations contributing Shia fighters into Syria and Iraq and now the formulation of the Global Sunni 34 Nation Community led by KSA and Turkey----whatever this administration claims it is doing will in the end be a total failure.
Below is the perfect disconnect by this administration.
Let's see---the KSA in a recent article literally condemned the lack of a US ME FP...........NOW the Sunni Front States led by KSA and Turkey HAVE now become the Global Sunni League.........AND it appears that the US DoS has not figured that out.....EVER think that actually Kerry and Putin both have the same goal---support of the Shia Revolutionary Islam against the global Sunni community........??
OR why is it that Obama is so deadest in holding firm to Iran and ignoring the KSA??
Remember it was actually Putin before the UNGA who stated "he was not getting into an religious conflict" AND he is actively now supporting the Shia side and that is not religious??
Department of State
@StateDept At #Moscow press conference, @JohnKerry discusses finding common ground with #Russia on several pressing issues.
"As Sergey just said" ?! ...
"Common ground" ?! ...
"Riyadh - that is not (our) position" ?! ...
Speechless
AND this is the current US FP..........??