“We must use every pillar of American power, including our values, to fight terror”, Clinton said.
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But he said Clinton was “quite sanguine about our ability to micromanage political change in Syria and Iraq (in a way that) seems to fly in the face of our unsuccessful efforts to do that previously in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya”.
Speaking just before her primary rival Vermont Sen. She made a point of threading her discursive speech with references to her Foggy Bottom tenure, such as building up “a unit of communications specialists fluent in Urdu, Arabic, Somali, and other languages to do battle with extremists online”.
She also spoke about the need to combat radical jihadism more broadly and that ordinary Muslims can not be considered a threat.
Clinton, by contrast, said the threat is an urgent one. How will Hillary Clinton defeat ISIS?
Clinton echoed that sentiment one day later, declaring: “This is a time for American leadership”.
Smoke rises over Sinjar, northern Iraq from oil fires set by Islamic State militants as Kurdish Iraqi fighters, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, launch a major assault on Thursday, November 12, 2015.
Clinton is the first Democratic presidential candidate to propose an increased USA military effort against IS. Other Democratic nominees have been hesitant to stray from what President Obama is already doing in Syria.
When asked later if she would approve combat troops if the United States were attacked, Clinton again said no.
Clinton described the current goal as “not to deter or contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS”, repeating a distinction she made during Saturday’s debate when reacting to Obama’s boast that ISIS was geographically contained within shrinking territory. “This is their fight and they need to act like it”.
She was toughest on Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally.
The U.S. now has a few 3,400 trainers in Iraq and plans to deploy about 50 Special Operations soldiers to northeast Syria to work with combined Syrian Kurds and Arab forces fighting IS in the area. “Islam is not our adversary”, Clinton argued.
“Radical Islamic terrorists have declared war on the Western world”.
With the President thousands of miles away on an around-the-world trip – and under attack over a defensive press conference in the wake of the ISIS rampages that killed more than 120 people in France last week – Clinton had the national security stage to herself.
Overall, the speech was as fluid and comprehensive as any Clinton speech usually is.
We can see that in the people who run presidential campaigns and then wind up working for the White House, if their candidate wins. The knowledge thus gained against IS would help make both the air and the ground campaign more effective.
But even as she has embraced Obama’s domestic policy achievements – a popular move in the Democratic nominating contest – his foreign policy record has become more complicated to address. She says would “break up the big banks” if necessary and hold top financial executives accountable.
Hillary Clinton said Thursday that it’s time for a “new phase” in the fight against the Islamic State that includes more air and drone strikes, the halt of financing and the shut down of terrorist social media accounts by technology companies. She would “roll up her sleeves-not only lay down the policy, but be involved with implementing it on the high levels that would be required”, Galston said.
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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). Maybe sometime in the future when we feel we have a better control over ISIS, maybe we’ve clipped their wings a little bit.
