The president’s appearance at the Pentagon was part of a weeklong push to explain his strategy for stopping the Islamic State group overseas and its sympathizers at home.
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Aiming to put a human face on the Syrian refugee issue, Obama is to speak today at the National Archives Museum, where 31 immigrants from Iraq, Ethiopia, Uganda and 23 other nations will be sworn in as USA citizens.
Obama’s high-profile visits to agencies charged with keeping the USA safe follow a televised address last week that aimed to reassure the public but that critics said failed to do the jo’b. But he and most other politicians oppose sending a large American contingent to augment the U.S.-led coalition air campaign. Fewer than three in 10 say mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims, a similar finding to surveys conducted before the recent violence.
Meanwhile, the USA will continue to work to further build up worldwide contributions to the coalition’s effort to defeat Islamic State.
Drawing an implied contrast with military prescriptions offered by Republican presidential candidates, including Ted Cruz’s call to “carpet bomb them into oblivion”, Obama said, “We have to be smart, targeting ISIL surgically, with precision” airstrikes while local forces do the ground combat.
After the meeting, Obama said Islamic State has lost thousands of miles in Syria and ground in Iraq. Obama said airstrikes had increased and that the coalition had taken out key figures in the group’s leadership “one by one”.
That is a major shift since Obama’s first term in the White House, when he was hailed for authorizing a high-risk special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The president gave an Oval Office speech last week, visited the Pentagon Monday and is expected to visit a counterterrorism facility later in the week.
Just 4 in 10 approve of Obama’s handling of the threat posed by IS, terrorism or the USA role in world affairs more generally.
Carter said US commanders are working on new tactics and strategies, as well as ways to amplify the coalition effort. “What happens when there’s a terrorist attack generated from Yemen?”
The AP-GfK Poll of 1,007 adults was conducted online December 3-7, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is created to be representative of the USA population. Fifty-one percent said they disapproved.
“The point is ISIL leaders can not hide and our next message to them is simple: ‘You are next, ‘” Obama said after meeting with his national security team at the Pentagon.
“Iraq syndrome is still hanging there”, he said, referring to a hangover from the USA invasion and occupation of Iraq, “and the public doesn’t really think that war is going to solve the ISIS problem”.
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“It’s gotta be done”, said Ripperton, 76, a National Guard veteran and self-professed political independent.
