It's time to go
after ISIS in Iraq and Syria, President Barack Obama said Wednesday
night in a nationally televised address intended to sell stepped-up
military efforts to a war-weary public.
Announcing a broad campaign against the Sunni
jihadists who have rampaged from Syria across northern Iraq, Obama
announced an escalated U.S. military role as part of a strategy that
includes building an international coalition to support Iraqi ground
forces and perhaps troops from other.
US airstrikes have been hitting the jihadists in Iraq. Those strikes will be expanded to ISIS targets in Syria, Obama said.
"I have made it
clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country,
wherever they are," he said. "That means I will not hesitate to take
action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle
of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven."
The declaration answered calls from a growing number of U.S. politicians for such a step, with increasing public support.
"This was a very
difficult speech for him to give," CNN chief political analyst Gloria
Borger said of a president who campaigned on ending wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. "He's inserted us into the middle of a Syrian civil war."
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