"The militant group, also known as ISIS, “poses a long-term threat to the
safety and security of NATO members,” Obama said at a press conference
in Newport, Wales. “We have a critical role to play in rolling back this
savage organization.”
The president advocated systematically “taking the fight to” ISIS in much the same way the U.S. combated al Qaeda.
“You initially push them back, you systematically degrade their
capabilities, you narrow their scope of action, you slowly shrink the
space, the territory that they control, you take out their leadership,
and over time, they are not able to conduct the same kinds of terrorist
attacks that they once could,” Obama said, adding that U.S. combat
troops would not be deployed to the region.
“I don’t think that’s necessary for us to accomplish our goal,” he said.
Instead, the American military will work to strengthen Iraqi and Syrian
forces already on the ground.
Obama also called for a “strategic communications effort so that we are
discouraging people from thinking that [ISIS] represents a state, much
less a caliphate.”
“That’s not what Islam is about,” he added.
In a London Times Op-Ed, the leaders panned an “
isolationist approach” and vowed that America and Britain “will not be cowed” by ISIS.
“Whether it is regional aggression going unchecked or the prospect that foreign fighters could return from Iraq and
Syria
to pose a threat in our countries, the problems we face today threaten
the security of British and American people,” they wrote.
