President Obama has repeatedly rejected the notion of no-fly zones, though Secretary of State John Kerry is reported to have enquired about the logistics surrounding such plans in recent cabinet meetings.
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The Democratic presidential front-runner laid out her ideas Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations in what was billed as a major policy speech.
Clinton has already said that she would extend the American Opportunity Tax Credit for families paying for college, and a new tax credit for out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures, a measure Clinton announced in September.
Airstrikes though, Clinton added, “will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS”.
“This is a time for American leadership”, Clinton concluded.
The details of Clinton’s strategy to defeat ISIS fit within a broader plan to undermine the growing infrastructure that fuels other terrorist groups around the world by targeting “hot spots” of radicalization and attacking their online spaces and their lines of financial support.
Voters who think the United States is at war with radical Islamic terrorism are evenly divided over the question of whether ISIS represents true Islamic beliefs.
Clinton said that while the fight against ISIS and radical jihadism is a “worldwide fight”, the U.S. “must lead it”.
However, she opposed deploying large numbers of US troops, saying “local people and nations have to secure their own communities”.
The former Secretary of State said in order to accomplish that objective the US must recognize that ISIS is “demonstrating new ambition, reach, and capabilities” which must stopped.
“We must deny them virtual territory, just as we deny them actual territory”, said Clinton.
Yet Clinton provides a wish list of Mideast diplomatic breakthroughs that a USA with no skin in the game will somehow bring about: “work with” Putin’s Russian Federation, get “our Arab and Turkish partners” to “step up in a much bigger way”, bring in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, “counter Iranian influence across the region”.
During the speech – explicitly focused on her assessment of the Syrian conflict and the Islamic State threat – Clinton described her strategy, which she said expanded on the one President Obama is now pursuing.
Her remarks come as Republicans are calling for troops on the ground (Jeb Bush), tracking U.S. Muslims (Donald Trump), barring Syrian orphans (Chris Christie), and religious tests for refugees (Ted Cruz).
“Islam is not our adversary”, Clinton said at an address Thursday. Instead, she insisted, “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism”.
“I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will never send our sons and daughters to war under false pretence or pretences or into dubious battles with no end in sight”, he said in a speech at Georgetown University.
“Congress should be providing resources to do it right, not trying to stop it”, she said.
Clinton also called for a no-fly zone over Syria.
In the 2008 campaign, Ms Clinton’s vote in support of the 2003 Iraq war was a key factor in losing the nomination contest to Mr Obama.
“We can not allow terrorists to intimidate us into abandoning our values and our humanitarian obligations”, she said.
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Unlike every other presidential contender, Clinton ran the State Department for four years and dealt with terror issues-as is all too apparent from the failure in Benghazi. She led Sanders 33 percent to 24 percent in a September poll that also included Vice President Biden. “There are times when has disagreed with the president and she has been very upfront about those”, Palmieri told the BBC.
