Obama announced a new effort to share intelligence with France following the coordinated terror spree across Paris that killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds.
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U.S. President Barack Obama addresses a news conference following a working session at the Group of 20 (G20) leaders summit in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, Turkey, November 16, 2015.
He rejected the notion that his administration had misjudged ISIS – on Friday morning, hours before the attacks in Paris, Obama had said on ABC News that “we have contained” ISIS – or that he doesn’t truly understand this enemy.
Obama even went on to call for Republican leaders to be more like former President George W. Bush.
“My only interest is to end suffering and keep the American people safe”. “And it’s going to take a few time, but it’s not something that at any stage in this process have we not been aware needs to be done”. “That’s not American. It’s not who we are”.
“If you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, then they resurface”.
“There will be an intensification of the strategy that we’ve put forward”, he said. And in this flood of innocent victims, Islamist terrorists slip through the security cracks, with the intent of wreaking havoc on our way of life, as was just accomplished in Paris. “And as we, I’m sure, each said to President Hollande and the French people, we stand in solidarity with them in hunting down the perpetrators of this crime and bringing them to justice”. Or Libya, perhaps. Or if there’s a terrorist network that’s operating anywhere else in North Africa or Southeast Asia.
President Obama also rejected critics who believe he’s hasn’t taken a hard enough stance on ISIS and reiterated his position: he does not want USA boots on the ground in Syria.
The Obama administration has maintained a very cautious policy with US military action, and in light of the war in Iraq, that can be viewed as a positive development. And so our goals here consistently have to be – to be aggressive and to leave no stone unturned, but also recognize this is not conventional warfare.
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“We are concerned over the acute and growing flow of foreign terrorist fighters and the threat it poses for all states, including countries of origin, transit and destination”, the G20 joint statement said. The president noted success from authorizing additional USA special operations forces on the ground to work with Syrian and Iraqi forces against ISIL. More nations need to step up with the resources that this fight demands, ” he added. He then repeated those sentiments during a CNN interview but with a little twist, saying he would “take away their wealth” by bombing the oil fields they occupy in Syria and in Iraq.
