Obama says ground troops to fight ISIS would be a mistake

When President Obama spoke about the Paris attacks, he reiterated that he isn’t changing his stance on the fight against ISIS.

“Here at the G-20, our nations have sent an unmistakable message, that we are united against this threat”, Obama said.

He offered assurances that the refugees allowed into the US are accepted “only after subjecting them to rigorous screening and security checks”.

“The [ISIS] strategy that we are putting forward is ultimately the strategy that is going to work”, Obama said. “That’s not who we are”, he said. “What’s been interesting in the aftermath of Paris, as I listen to those who suggest ‘something else needs to be done, ‘ typically the things they suggest need to be done are things we are already doing”, he said.

“This is war. This is massive savagery on the part of ISIS”, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told Fox News on Monday.

But the United States and its allies have no choice, Obama contends, but to continue down the long and arduous path of rebuilding Syria with Syrian hands, and Iraq with Iraqi hands. At least one of the attackers in Paris carried a Syrian passport and has been identified as being associated with ISIS.

The president grew visibly irritated with repeated questions during his news conference about whether he should act more decisively or accomplish more faster to destroy Islamic State. Officials have agreed that all four attacks bear the “hallmarks” of ISIS, though it remains unclear as to what degree they were directed by the group itself.

Still, if a shocked world hoped for personal mea culpas, bombastic vows of vengeance or a cathartic show of public emotion from the USA president, it was disappointed at his first major public appearance since the horror that blighted the City of Light. I do not necessarily advocate American ground forces at this point, but we should never reassure our enemy that our commander‐in‐chief would not commit them at the time and place of his choosing.

“There were no specific mentions of this particular attack that would give us a sense of something that we could provide French authorities, for example, or act on ourselves”, he said.

“While we are very clear-eyed about the very, very hard road still ahead, the United States in partnership with our coalition is going to remain relentless on all fronts – military, humanitarian and diplomatic”.

The problem with this logic is that, unlike the top level of al-Qaeda, ISIS actually possesses and controls large swaths of territory. Islamic State’s territorial aggrandizement parallels Obama’s decision to walk away from his red-line threat of military action in response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, and Obama’s decision – against the unified advice of his secretary of state, secretary of defense and Central Intelligence Agency director – not to arm the Syrian opposition. And he brushed aside those who call for sending us ground troops into the region, saying that “would be a mistake” and wouldn’t work unless the USA was committed to being a permanent occupying force in the region.

“Even as we grieve with our French friends, however, we can’t lose sight that there has been progress being made”, Obama added.

Yes – which is why U.S. strategy before Obama became president was to fight terrorists like AQ and ISIS where they were rather than waiting for them to come to us. “What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of “American leadership” or ‘America winning,”‘ he said firmly.