One mystery in President Obama’s decision to engage in a long battle to defeat ISIS is whether it will hurt or enhance the chances of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Speaker John A. Boehner endorsed the president’s plan, saying the House would likely vote next week to authorize training of Syrian rebels.
A joint communiqué issued by the United States and 10 Arab states endorsed a broad strategy to fight ISIS, but none of the Arab participants said precisely how they would help.
There was intense debate on Thursday over whether airstrikes on ISIS would help or harm President Bashar al-Assad, his armed Syrian opponents and war-weary civilians.
A federal court ordered the release of about 1,500 pages of documents containing arguments and evidence in Yahoo’s challenge to government surveillance.