Obama says US will overcome terror threat; knows Americans are worried

President Barack Obama sought to soothe a nation shaken by the terrorist attack in a California town with assurances the USA is hardening its defenses that were tempered by an acknowledgment that the threat has evolved into a new phase.

“The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it”, Obama said in a rare televised address, only his third delivered from the White House Oval Office.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Obama “is intentionally misleading the nation about the threat we face from ISIL”.

The speech comes during a period of national anxiety, following a massive terrorist attack in Paris and the shooting in San Bernardino.

“It would be the Muslims who will defeat Islamic State group through their religious thoughts which stress on peace”, he added.

The Islamic State’s core leadership in Syria played a role in planning the attack in Paris and the bombing of a Russian jet over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according to intelligence reports.

During the speech, President Obama underscored the military’s many wins in the war against terror, and also reminded the American people that ISIS does not represent the totality of all Muslim men and women. “I think we made some bad decisions subsequent to that attack, in part based on fear, and that’s why we have to be cautious about it”, he said two weeks ago while visiting Asia.

“This was an act of terrorism created to kill innocent people”, he admitted.

Instead, Obama said, “we will prevail by being strong and smart”. Turning this into a fight between America and Islam, he said “is what ISIL wants”.

Only two other times has Obama used the Oval Office as the backdrop for a speech: in 2010 following addresses on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the end of the Iraq war.

Some of the Republican presidential candidates had quickly labeled the shootings an act of terrorism and faulted Obama for not saying so immediately.

His address came four days after a radicalized Islamist husband-and-wife team wielding semiautomatic weapons killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and wounded 21 others.

With the primetime address, Obama is turning to a tool of the presidency that he has used infrequently.

But he said the United States has been ramping up its campaign against the Islamic State over the past few weeks, as more special forces troops have been dispatched to advise and assist Syrian opposition forces and Iraqi forces and air strikes after Islamic State targets and tanker trucks.

And in an appeal that will likely anger conservatives, Obama demanded tougher gun control, saying it was a key part of combating ISIS.

Jae C. Hong/AP People pay respects at a makeshift memorial honoring the victims of Wednesday’s shooting rampage that killed 14 people, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015, in San Bernardino, Calif.

The president, elected on an anti-war platform, showed little sign of meeting his political foes in the middle as he reiterated calls for gun control and ruling out a new ground war in Mesopotamia.

Administration officials said the president was referring specifically to the group’s ability to seize new ground in Iraq and Syria.

Obama also called for stricter gun-control measures, something that has been met with heavy resistance by Republicans. “Let’s have a strategy to take out ISIS there so we don’t have to deal with them here”, he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “So they were like sitting ducks, every one of them”.