Obama, a Democrat who endorsed his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 White House race, has made clear his dismay over Trump, a NY businessman who has proposed temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States and building a wall on the US border with Mexico.
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Stating that US-led coalition had carried out 14,000 air strikes against ISIS and 100 thousand sorties, he, however, said military force would not be enough to defeat ISIS. I’ve made this point already multiple times.
The Obama administration is exploring expanded military cooperation with Russian Federation in Syria that could include intelligence sharing, a proposal about which some USA defense officials have publicly expressed concern. He is scheduled to leave Saturday for a vacation with his family on Martha’s Vineyard through August 21.
Speaking after a briefing on Thursday from his top national security advisers on the expanding war against ISIS in Iraq, Syria and most recently Libya, where U.S. planes have been bombing in support of a government offensive near Sirte, Mr Obama pledged the militant group would “inevitably” be crushed and said the US-led coalition would continue to aggressively target the militants “across every front”.
President Barack Obama vowed Thursday that Islamic State is “inevitably going to be defeated”, but he predicted that the terrorist networks it spawns are likely to continue operating after the group loses its major strongholds in Iraq and Syria. “If we screw that up, then we are going to have bigger problems”.
US President Barack Obama has said Donald Trump’s approach to dealing with the Islamic State could end up “backfiring” and playing into the hands of the terrorist group. Obama said with exasperation.
“I am pleased with the progress that we’ve made on the ground in Iraq and Syria”, Obama said, but added: “We’re far from freeing Mosul and Raqqa”. “And we’ll keep hitting them and pushing them back and driving them out until they do”, he said.
The president’s visit to the Pentagon comes as a new round of airstrikes has begun at ISIL targets in Libya at the request of the local government.
According to Obama, unlike al-Qaeda, which had a much more centralized operation and tried to plan very elaborate attacks, the IS opted to inspire lone-wolf attackers whose less complicated attacks were harder to detect and prevent.
The greatest danger posed by the group was one of overreaction, Obama said.
But an agreement with Russian Federation exposes the United States to risks, said Jeff Mankoff, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. According to the BBC, he added that terrorist networks in the USA could be activated.
The president also urged Americans to resist buying into some of the controversial proposals discussed on the campaign trail, including banning Muslims from immigrating to the United States or carpet bombing the Middle East.
“That plays exactly into the hands of Isil and the perverse interpretations of Islam that they are putting forward”. “We can defeat ourselves though if we make bad decisions”.
More than once, Trump has expressed concerns about the sanctity of the election process.
Obama did say, however, that should Trump beat Clinton, he would fulfill his duty to help the incoming president despite his criticisms of the billionaire’s fitness for the Oval Office.
“Russia may not be able to get there, either because they don’t want to, or because they don’t have sufficient influence over Assad”.
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“What I will say is that they have been told these are classified briefings”, he added, in response to a question about whether he was concerned about Trump obtaining the classified information.
