Despite Paris, Obama rejects calls for shift in ISIS fight

U.S. President Barack Obama doubled down on his foreign policy strategy toward Syria Monday, saying during a closing speech at the Group of 20, or G-20, summit in Antalya, Turkey, that the efforts in the region to combat the growing threat of the Islamic State are accelerating but that he does not plan on altering the overall strategy.

“Sadly, this plot was not disrupted in time”, he said of Friday’s massacres in Paris, which killed 129 people including one American.

“When I hear folks say that maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting there should be a religious test for which a person fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted… that’s shameful”. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has told his fellow leaders that Canada will continue to make a strong military contribution in the fight against Islamic militants – but not from the air.

Obama defended the USA strategy against ISIS, also known as ISIL and Daesh, asserting the group’s ability to expand and hold territory in Iraq and Syria had been weakened under constant coalition bombardment.

Both the president and his Central Intelligence Agency director said again Monday that the administration had not underestimated ISIS, a criticism that gained traction within both political parties after Obama called the terror group a “jayvee team” during a 2014 interview with The New Yorker.

“That’s not American”, he said. Obama said those behind the attack are “killers with fantasies of glory” who are savvy with social media.

He said the United States was seeking to persuade other allies to engage more deeply in the fight against the Islamic State, and he said the U.S. effort to find more partners on the ground in Syria and Iraq was accelerating. GOP presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz have made such suggestions, while a few Republican governors want to ban all Syrian refugees from their states. They also discussed the influx of refugees into Europe as a result of fighting in Syria and other countries. They are parents. They are children. “They are orphans and it is very important… that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism”. “There will be an intensification of the strategy we have put forward, but the strategy we have put forward is the strategy that will ultimately work”.

“This is something that was deliberately and carefully planned over the course I think of several months”, he said. “But…it is going to take time”.

While officials say the USA had been aware of the Islamic State’s desire to strike targets outside the Middle East, Obama said he had not been briefed on any intelligence that indicated an attack in Paris was likely.

“I’m not aware of anything that was specific”, he said.

“That would be a mistake, not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we’ve seen before”, Obama said.

The president is also looking to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabian King Salman to help broker a ceasefire in Syria.