Obama: No Strategy Yet To Combat ISIS In Syria

United States President Barack Obama delivers a statement to provide an update on Iraq and the situation in Ferguson, Missouri in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House August 18, 2014 in Washington, DC. Ph... United States President Barack Obama delivers a statement to provide an update on Iraq and the situation in Ferguson, Missouri in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House August 18, 2014 in Washington, DC. Photo by: Olivier Douliery/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images MORE LESS
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Ahead of a meeting with his national security team, President Obama said Thursday that the administration does not yet have a strategy for dealing with ISIS in Syria.

He said that the U.S. has continued with targeted airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, but said that no imminent action against Syria is planned.

Obama said that he will send Secretary of State John Kerry to the Middle East and emphasized that the U.S. needs to work with other actors in the region.

“We’re going to have to build a regional strategy,” he said.

While he didn’t lay out a concrete strategy, he said that Syrian President Bashar al Assad has been unable “to bring peace and stability” to the region.

“The violence that’s been taking place in Syria has obviously given ISIL a safe haven there,” Obama said.

The President also noted that it is “unrealistic” to think that the U.S. will “perpetually defeat ISIS.”

“In the end [Iraqis are] going to be responsible for their own security,” he said.

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  1. Right now, the strategy is to try and get the regional powers surrounding Iraq and Syria to do their goddamn part! If we even send advisors back in, that’s a slippery slope, and Obama knows it. (What’s more, would those advisors have the legal protections that made the original advisement plan go down the tubes?) I’m with Markos Moulitsas, who said, “Let the neighbors take care of the problem!”

  2. In Islamist-Ruled Mosul, Resentment of Militants Grows

    Initially, many in the Sunni-majority city of Mosul were pleased to see Islamic State fighters send the mostly Shiite Iraqi army fleeing after sectarian tensions in the country worsened under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But that enthusiasm faded fast.

    “People aren’t sympathizing with them anymore,” said the doctor. “People wanted to get rid of the Iraqi army. But after the Islamic State turned against Mosul, the people of Mosul started turning against them.”

    Residents say the rising resentment has come alongside rumors that homegrown militias are mustering troops in secret to overthrow the militants. Two such groups in particular, the Prophet of Jonah Brigades and the Free Mosul Brigades, have formed in the past few weeks, residents said.

    But few people in Mosul expect the city’s residents to succeed where the Iraqi army has failed, unless they have outside help. Unlike most Iraqis, the people of Mosul were left largely unarmed after the Iraqi army went house to house a few years ago and confiscated weapons in a bid to reduce violence in the city.

    With pressure mounting, the insurgents appear to be bracing for the worst. They have been spotted placing improvised explosive devices around the center of the city so they can detonate them in case of a ground attack, said Atheel Al Nujaifi, the former governor of Nineveh province in northern Iraq, where Mosul is located.

    -snip-

    But the most pressing problems are economic. A city that used to get 12 or 13 hours of electricity a day now only gets two to three. Some 30% of businesses have closed for lack of customers, and those that remain open are struggling, one resident said.

    Without reliable imports, commodities such as milk, rice and oil are dwindling.

    Isolate them, squeeze them economically, exploit their internal divisions and they’ll fall apart like a cheap watch.

  3. lindsey mccain respond harshly in 3 2 1 go

  4. Avatar for mymy mymy says:

    Sorry, but I simply do not expect the President of the United States to telegraph his actual strategy! Newshounds are a bit thick in this way.

  5. Avatar for tani tani says:

    NO WAR. You get that GOP/MSM, so McCain, Graham & Co. you can tell Koch and friends they won’t be making money off the soldiers…

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