TIME Politics Foreign Policy

U.S. to Ratchet Up Russia Sanctions

Russia's President Putin leaves the Life-giving Trinity church in Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin leaves the Life-giving Trinity church in Moscow, Sept. 10, 2014. Alexei Druzhinin—RIA Novosti/Reuters

An effort to ensure recent cease-fire holds

President Barack Obama announced Thursday that the United States would “deepen and broaden” its sanctions on Russia for its actions in eastern Ukraine, despite last week’s cease-fire reached between the government of Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists.

American and European officials have been preparing the additional sanctions for weeks, and decided to press ahead with them this week. “We have yet to see conclusive evidence that Russia has ceased its efforts to destabilize Ukraine,” Obama said in a statement, noting that the U.S. is taking the action in response to the presence of Russian military forces in eastern Ukraine over the last month.

The specific sanctions will be detailed Friday, when the European Union will also outline a new round of economic sanctions against Russia. “We will deepen and broaden sanctions in Russia’s financial, energy, and defense sectors,” Obama said. “These measures will increase Russia’s political isolation as well as the economic costs to Russia, especially in areas of importance to President Putin and those close to him.”

Obama hinted at the additional sanctions last week, suggesting that ratcheting up the pressure was the most likely way to ensure compliance with the cease-fire. “It’s my view that if you look at President Poroshenko’s plan, it is going to take some time to implement,” Obama said last week following a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Wales. “And as a consequence, for us to move forward based on what is currently happening on the ground with sanctions—while acknowledging that if, in fact, the elements of the plan that has been signed are implemented then those sanctions could be lifted—is a more likely way for us to ensure that there’s follow-through.”

“If Russia fully implements its commitments, these sanctions can be rolled back,” Obama said Thursday. “If, instead, Russia continues its aggressive actions and violations of international law, the costs will continue to rise.”

 

TIME Politics technology

Why Terrorists Love Twitter

Mosul Iraq ISIS
Fighters from the Islamic State group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul, Iraq on June 23, 2014. AP

ISIS and the challenge for social media sites

In 2011, the Somali Islamist group known as Al-Shabab took to Twitter. Its official handle taunted the group’s enemies, boasted of battlefield triumphs and shared images from the front lines of conflict zones. It sparred with political antagonists, rattling off missives in grandiose English. The terrorists—like the site’s less murderous users—used Twitter to share news and promote their brand. In 2013, a Shabab account live-tweeted commentary as allied fighters carried out a terrorist attack at a Nairobi shopping mall.

Terrorists love Twitter. That includes the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), the Sunni Muslim extremists whom the U.S. is targeting in an expanded military campaign. ISIS has emerged as the most sophisticated group yet at using the service to spread its bloodthirsty message. And when ISIS jihadists and tens of thousands of acolytes swarmed Twitter in recent months, it raised the question of how social media sites should respond when unsavory groups colonize their platform.

There are no easy answers. Social-media networks exist so users can share information; sites like Twitter are neither equipped nor inclined to police large numbers of rogue feeds themselves. And within the intelligence community, there is no consensus on whether the use of sites like Twitter as a propaganda tool hurts or helps U.S. interests.

To some observers, Twitter was derelict in allowing extremist accounts to flourish. “For several years, ISIS followers have been hijacking Twitter to freely promote their jihad with very little to no interference at all,” says Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which studies jihadi extremists’ behavior online. “Twitter’s lack of action has resulted in a strong, and massive pro-ISIS presence on their social media platform, consisting of campaigns to mobilize, recruit and terrorize.”

Others say it’s not so simple. “There is a case to be made for removing the content or removing the most prolific [jihadist] accounts online. Each time that happens, they had to rebuild their audience. It has a disruptive effect,” says counterterrorism expert Clint Watts, who has studied ISIS’s behavior online. But ISIS accounts may also, in some cases, be a boon to intelligence-gathering efforts. “Their braggadocio tells us what we don’t know about what’s happening in eastern Syria,” Watts says. “In Iraq they show us every one of their successes. There is value in that.”

For that reason, some government officials may prefer the accounts remain open. “There is some value to being able to track them on Twitter,” says William McCants, a former State Department senior adviser who directs the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution. McCants recalls that a U.S. intelligence official described the site as a “gold mine” of information about foreign-fighter networks, better than any clandestine sources. The State Department is using Twitter itself, with a counter-propaganda campaign run through an account, Think AgainTurn Away. It tries to nettle ISIS and neutralize their recruiting.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment for this article. The site’s rules prohibit threats of violence, harassment and other abuses, and government agencies or law enforcement officials are able to request the removal of prohibited content. In 2013, it received just 437 such requests from governments worldwide; it received 432 in the first half of this year.

In recent months, Twitter has cracked down on some accounts, including those sharing macabre images or videos of the beheading of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. But it is not trawling for the content that some government officials believe has the greatest potential to convert potential conscripts. “This is not necessarily a bloody picture. It’s somebody telling you to go kill,” says Alberto Fernandez, coordinator of the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, whose digital outreach team is responsible for the Twitter counter-messaging campaign. “That discussion is not being taken down by Twitter.”

It’s easy to see why terrorists flocked to the platform. Beginning in the mid-2000s, al-Qaeda has been organizing online through bulletin-board forums, which were largely password protected and sometimes required special contacts to gain access. Moderators would scrub signs of dissension. In contrast, Twitter is something of a digital town square—a free megaphone to reach a mass audience, easily accessible on smartphones and largely unmonitored.

As ISIS fighters began capturing vast swaths of Syria and Iraq this summer, its network of online organizers—there are around 30 key players, according to analysts who study global extremism online—tweeted about territorial gains, posting photographic proof of their conquests. They softened their hard-edged image by sprinkling in common humanizing touches, like pictures of meals and cute cat photos. And they set about trying to recruit more conscripts—including Westerners—to the cause.

It may seem incongruous; religious extremism is in large part a renunciation of modern society, while the social-media platform is both emblem and enabler of the networked world. But since it is impossible to scrub all pro-ISIS sentiment from Twitter, U.S. analysts are trying to use the service to piece together a better understanding of the terrorist group’s dynamics. Twitter’s decision to silence some accounts but not all is fine, McCants says, and watching the group latch onto a new account when a big one is blocked can be instructive. “When you knock one of them down, it’s interesting to see how quickly they reconstitute and who their earliest followers are,” he says. “Those are the guys that are plugged in.”

TIME Politics Foreign Policy

Obama, ISIS and 9/11

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The President laid out a measured, prudent approach to handle the ISIS threat last night. A lot was unstated–as it should be–concerning the role of US special ops on the ground and surreptitious alliances with countries like Iran, whose interests now coincide with our own in the region. The McCainiac Republican reaction–more! bigger! now!–is so far beyond foolish that it needn’t be taken seriously. If John McCain had been elected President–and actually governed the way he runs his mouth–we’d have troops stuck in perpetuity in Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and quite possibly Iran, not to mention Ukraine and Georgia (if we were lucky enough to avoid a nuclear exchange with Russia). McCain, in his tussle with Jay Carney on CNN last night, said we’d had troops in Korea and Bosnia for many years and nothing awful had happened–true enough–but neither Bosnia nor Korea (nor Germany, or Japan, he might have added) have the history of rampaging western imperialism that the Middle East does.

And that history of imperialism represents the greatest obstacle to success for Obama’s plan. George W Bush’s foolish invasion of Iraq, plus the increasing power of communication among jihadists, unleashed the possibility that the straight line borders and imaginary countries drawn by Europeans in the Middle East 98 years ago might erode (as the border between Syria and Iraq has now vanished). This is the most critical problem with the President’s plan: It assumes that Iraq is a country, that it will be able to organize a plausible, multi-sectarian government and Army–his proposed “boots on the ground” in the war against ISIS. It also assumes that Syria, in its current borders, is a country. But it’s equally possible that Syria splits apart into Sunni and Shia (plus Druse and Maronite) zones, perhaps compromising the future existence of Lebanon and Jordan. And that the Kurds split off from Iraq. And maybe even that the Shi’ites in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province make common cause with their Arab Shi’ite brothers across the “border” in southern Iraq. Or, worst of all, that we’re on the cusp of a regional Sunni-Shia conflagration–which our actions might help precipitate. The possibilities are myriad, and defy anything we now assume.

It is a safe bet that this area will have fractures and bloody amputations, stuggles over new borders and perhaps new countries for the rest of this century. The forces pushing toward a tribal and sectarian rationalizing of borders are far too primal for the U.S and the West to control completely. Does that mean we shouldn’t try? No. We should try–humbly–and with low expectations. We should certainly try to take out as many of ISIS’s assets as possible and proceed–as the President suggested we should–in the same targeted manner we have in Somalia and Yemen. Keeping the terrorists on the defensive is very much in our national interest.

There is constant talk of hard and soft power, but in the 13 years since 9/11, we have learned of a third source: viral power. Terrorism is a constantly metastasizing virus. It can be suppressed but it is too mutable to be swept away. It is difficult to fight with conventional means, under the traditional rules of war. What the President was trying to communicate last night was that this struggle is not going to end with a signing ceremony on the deck of a battleship. As John Kerry said in 2004, it will continue as a low-grade fever for many years, quite possibly for the rest of our children’s lives. It is a chronic condition that will have to be managed, until the real nations in that benighted region are sorted out, built, governed and controlled–not by us, but by the people who live there. Our job between now and then is to be realistic, defend our national security interests and to help, diplomatically and economically, to build a stable peace, if such a thing is possible.

TIME Politics Senate

Ohio Senator Criticizes Obama ISIS Speech as ‘Tardy’

Portman Says Clinton May Be Too Mainstream For Democratic Party
Senator Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, speaks during an interview in Washington on July 10, 2014. Andrew Harrer—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Senator told reporters the President shouldn't have bragged about withdrawing troops from Iraq

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman criticized President Barack Obama’s national address Wednesday evening on the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), telling reporters Thursday that he should not have bragged about withdrawing American troops from Iraq.

“It was tardy,” Portman said of the speech. “I wish he’d done it sooner.”

Speaking at a breakfast for reporters organized by the Christian Science Monitor, Portman, a Republican, argued that the United States’ failure to maintain a combat troop presence in Iraq after 2010 “is the reason we’re in the situation we’re in” with ISIS.

“He is proud of the fact that we are ending the combat mission in Afghanistan this year,” Portman said of the President, adding that Obama is indicating to would-be partners and foes that the U.S. is not “in it for the long haul … Again we are not learning the lessons of Iraq.”

“I don’t consider it a new war [against ISIS],” he added. “I consider it a continuation of something that began 13 years ago.”

Portman said he was broadly supportive of the strategy Obama laid out for Iraq and Syria, saying that Congress should approve the President’s funding request to train the moderate Syrian opposition: “I think the speech last night laid out a general strategy that I hope most republicans will support.”

The Vice Chairman for Finance of the National Republican Senatorial Committee said that with 53 days until Election Day, the battle for control of the Senate is “too close to call” and that “what happens in terms of the economy is always the x-factor.” He admitted it was unlikely to change dramatically before the election.

Portman said he isn’t actively weighing a run for the White House in 2016. “Yeah, I’ll take a look at it after the election,” he said. Asked about any upcoming visits to the early state of New Hampshire, he quipped, “My daughter goes to school up there, so part of my heart is in New Hampshire.”

 

TIME Politics Foreign Policy

What a Trip to Iraq Reveals About Obama’s ISIS Plan

John Kerry Iraq Baghdad Helicopter
US Secretary of State John Kerry looks out over Baghdad from a helicopter on Sept. 10, 2014. Brendan Smialowski—AFP/Getty Images

Rhetoric versus reality in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone

The Republican Palace in central Baghdad was once Saddam Hussein’s preferred spot for meeting foreign leaders. The complex here, which served as the headquarters for the U.S. occupation, is vast and gaudily ornate. A huge outdoor fountain features a golden dragon that blasts high-pressure arcs of water through the air.

Today the palace is back in the hands of the Iraqis, and again serves as a destination for dignitaries. Hours before President Barack Obama addressed Americans Wednesday night about how he’ll combat the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), John Kerry’s motorcade pulled up outside the palace under a blazing hot sun. The Secretary of State was there for a meeting with Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s new prime minister—and a man on whom Obama is placing a very large bet.

Two days earlier, Kerry had hailed the Iraqi parliament’s choice of Abadi to succeed Nouri al-Maliki as “a major milestone” for Iraq. That may prove true: Maliki was a disaster for Iraq and for U.S. interests, a quasi-dictator whose thuggish treatment of Iraq’s Sunni minority stymied the country’s political maturation and allowed ISIS to feed off of Sunni resentment.

But it remains unclear whether Abadi truly offers a new vision for Iraq—or just a new face.

The fight against ISIS could hinge on the answer. Obama’s speech tied his expanded campaign against ISIS directly to Iraq’s political reform. “[T]his is not our fight alone…. we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves,” Obama said, adding that his latest action “depended upon Iraqis forming an inclusive government, which they have now done in recent days.”

But the rhetoric from Washington puts a happy face on a dicey reality. A senior State Department official admitted as much in a background briefing for reporters traveling with Kerry this week. “This is going to be extremely, extremely difficult. The problems that are confronting Iraq are incredibly challenging,” the official said. “And when you look at them day to day, they are so daunting that… you ask yourself where do you possibly go from here.”

*****

ISIS hasn’t reached Baghdad, but this city is far from safe—even if the local cell phone carrier sends a text message wishing you “a pleasant stay in Iraq.” ISIS fighters have been detonating car bombs in Baghdad on a regular basis for months. Three of them exploded on the day of Kerry’s visit, killing 30 people.

Security dictated that Kerry first land in Jordan and then switch from his official State Department 757 to a military plane capable of tactical evasion and counter-measures. At Baghdad’s airport, Kerry strapped on a flack jacket for a short helicopter ride to the U.S. embassy compound inside the Green Zone, a district of government buildings heavily fortified against the daily violence beyond its checkpoints.

Kerry’s motorcade moved slowly through the Green Zone’s endless checkpoints and speed bumps. All around were armored vehicles with black-clad soldiers manning mounted machine guns. An army tank stood guard at the end of an empty bridge. Even the motorcade’s press van was joined by a security man with an assault rifle. Nerves were jangly. When a sudden “pop” was heard as Kerry exited one meeting, an Iraqi soldier came running with rifle in hand. “I was reaching for mine!” the security man said. It turned out a car had backfired.

After their private meeting, Kerry and Abadi met briefly with the press in facing arm chairs, glasses of orange juice on a table between them. Balding and pot-bellied, Abadi has a gentler air than the grim-faced Maliki, and sat with a warm grin as Kerry praised the “boldness” of his promises to resolve issues that have vexed Washington for years, including Sunni representation in Baghdad’s government and feuds with Iraq’s Kurds over oil revenue sharing.

After meeting several more top Iraqi officials later in the day, Kerry was even more effusive. In all his past visits to Baghdad, Kerry said, he’d never before heard such unanimous “commitment to the concept of inclusivity and of addressing the unaddressed issues of the last eight years or more.”

But beneath the happy rhetoric lie red flags. Abadi may speak in inclusive tones, but his background is ominously similar to Maliki’s. Both are members of the Shi’ite Dawa party, formed in opposition to Saddam’s rule and backed by Iran, a Shi’ite nation detested by Iraqi Sunnis. One former advisor to several U.S. officials in Iraq has described Dawa as having an “inherently secretive, sectarian, exclusionary, Iranian-sympathizing culture.”

And many of Abadi’s cabinet ministers are holdovers from Maliki’s government. Two of the most crucial posts—the ministers of defense and interior—remain unfilled. Abadi’s original choice to run the interior ministry, which controls the Iraq police, is the leader of the Badr Organization, a Shi’ite militia group that massacred Sunnis during the last decade. That prompted a Sunni freakout and pressure from Washington that torpedoed the choice. (Abadi says he will fill the vacant ministries by next week; whether he can will be a vital early test.)

Nor do Iraqi Kurds trust the Shi’ite power structure in Baghdad. The Kurds call their support for Abadi’s government good for only three months if their demands, particularly regarding oil revenues, aren’t met.

“There are lots of politics left to play out,” says Douglas Ollivant, a former top Iraq aide under Obama and George W. Bush. “But it’s in our interest to declare this government ‘good enough.’”

Kerry skated by such details Wednesday. At the U.S. embassy compound—itself a fortress within the fortress of the Green Zone—Kerry called Iraqi political reform “the engine of our global strategy” against ISIS. The advent of a new government, he added, means “it’s full speed ahead.”

It may be that Abadi represents a new dawn for Iraq. But we’ve been here before. Not so long ago an American president celebrated the creation of a new Iraqi government. “This broadly representative unity government offers a new opportunity for progress in Iraq,” he declared. “The new government reflects Iraq’s diversity and opens a new chapter in that country’s history.”

That president was George W. Bush. The leader of that new government was Nouri al-Maliki.

TIME Politics White House

A President in Prime-Time Command After 2 Years of Frustration

As with past painful conflicts, there is no end date, and no clear metric on which to declare victory

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The central message of Wednesday night’s prime-time reveal of a new U.S. war in the Middle East came a few minutes in. President Barack Obama squared to the camera, slowed his delivery and filled each syllable with all the gravity he had. “I know many Americans are concerned about these threats,” he said, pausing briefly between sentences. “Tonight, I want you to know that the United States of America is meeting them with strength and resolve.”

That was the takeaway, the thing he wanted his country to remember after the 15-minute interruption of the America’s Got Talent ended: I got this. Americans may be getting their throats cut in distant deserts. Iraq may again be falling into tribal chaos. Islamist extremism may be rearing its head under a new black flag. But the situation is under control.

If he delivered the sentiment with remarkable presence of mind, it may only be because he hasn’t had many other opportunities over the past two years. Wars are presidential acts in the American system, whatever Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says. He chooses the bombs to drop, and where they hit. He makes the phone calls to get other countries on board. He reviews the intelligence on the homeland threat each day, weighing the risks of spilled blood at home and abroad.

War is also one of the last things of import he has control over in his second term. Just a few days earlier, he found himself in another room of the White House trying to explain to NBC’s Chuck Todd why Americans should care if Democrats keep the Senate in November, given all the evident powerlessness of anyone to do anything in Washington. The best he could come up with was that Democrats would have a better rhetorical position. “Having a Democratic Senate … means that we are debating the right things for the country,” he managed.

In other words, the status quo, a situation so untenable that his communications shop made his escape from it a selling point. “The bear is loose,” White House aides would tweet, when he walked down the street, bought ice cream or a hamburger on some Midwestern Main Street. The Oval Office, in other words, is a cage. His attempts to deal with gun violence had fallen flat after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. His bipartisan dinners to craft tax reform and deficit reduction had been cleared away. His signature legislative achievement had almost come crashing down with a website. Even his bold plan to take unilateral action this summer on the immigration crisis got waylaid by polls showing voters on the brink of outrage.

But this problem in Iraq and Syria, a few thousand jihadists belonging to a group with a name that no one can agree on — that was something he could handle. “Tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” he said.

It was a good moment for his presidency. But it was also the easy part. Polls show Americans favor intervention by about the same margin that they opposed bombing Syria last year. Chances are good the U.S. will win the military fight, and the spooks seem optimistic at the moment about preventing another homeland attack in retribution. But there will also be a cost.

Another goal of his second term was to wind down the eternal conflict his predecessor called the “war on terror.” Now that won’t happen anytime soon. The war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, which Obama described as neither Islamic nor a state, will be a long one. As with past painful conflicts, there is no end date, and no clear metric on which to declare victory. He said he will “degrade and ultimately destroy” the threat. But the destroy part could very well come years after he leaves office.

For now, however, everything is under control. The nation that can’t agree on anything is taking definitive action. “As Americans, we welcome our responsibility to lead,” Obama said Wednesday night.

The same can be said for the President who leads us.

TIME Politics Foreign Policy

Rand Paul Calls Obama’s ISIS Plan ‘Unconstitutional’

But he does support the intervention

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) agreed with President Barack Obama’s strategy to combat the threat of Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday night, but criticized Obama’s methods as unconstitutional.

“It doesn’t in any way represent what our Constitution dictates nor what our founding fathers intended,” Paul, a likely 2016 presidential contender said on Fox News. “So it is unconstitutional what he’s doing.

“He should have come before a joint session of Congress, laid out his plan—as he did tonight—and then called for an up or down vote on whether or not to authorize to go to war,” Paul added. “I think the President would be more powerful [and] the country would have been more united.”

In his address to the nation Wednesday, Obama said the U.S. would expand its air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and provide funding to train and arm the Syrian opposition. He also reiterated his position that he has the executive authority to do so without congressional approval but that he would welcome congressional support as a sign of American unity.

TIME Politics Foreign Policy

Watch John McCain and Jay Carney Face Off Over Obama’s ISIS Plan

The Former White House Press Secretary and the Senator spoke about Obama's announcement on ISIS

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Former White House Press Secretary and newly minted CNN Contributor Jay Carney had a rough welcome to the cable network Wednesday after President Barack Obama’s address to the nation about his strategy for confronting ISIS.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who ran unsuccessfully for president against Obama in 2008, appeared on CNN to respond to the President’s speech and laid into Carney’s comments in support of his former boss.

Watch the exchange in the video above.

TIME Politics Foreign Policy

Full Text of Obama’s Address on ISIS

Full text of President Barack Obama's address to the nation on ISIS

President Barack Obama addressed the nation Wednesday on his strategy to confront the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).

Below are his remarks as delivered:

My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.

As Commander-in-Chief, my highest priority is the security of the American people. Over the last several years, we have consistently taken the fight to terrorists who threaten our country. We took out Osama bin Laden and much of al Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We’ve targeted al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, and recently eliminated the top commander of its affiliate in Somalia. We’ve done so while bringing more than 140,000 American troops home from Iraq, and drawing down our forces in Afghanistan, where our combat mission will end later this year. Thanks to our military and counterterrorism professionals, America is safer.

Still, we continue to face a terrorist threat. We can’t erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm. That was the case before 9/11, and that remains true today. And that’s why we must remain vigilant as threats emerge. At this moment, the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL — which calls itself the “Islamic State.”

Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor by the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.

In a region that has known so much bloodshed, these terrorists are unique in their brutality. They execute captured prisoners. They kill children. They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide. And in acts of barbarism, they took the lives of two American journalists — Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.

So ISIL poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East — including American citizens, personnel and facilities. If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States. While we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened America and our allies. Our Intelligence Community believes that thousands of foreigners -– including Europeans and some Americans –- have joined them in Syria and Iraq. Trained and battle-hardened, these fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly attacks.

I know many Americans are concerned about these threats. Tonight, I want you to know that the United States of America is meeting them with strength and resolve. Last month, I ordered our military to take targeted action against ISIL to stop its advances. Since then, we’ve conducted more than 150 successful airstrikes in Iraq. These strikes have protected American personnel and facilities, killed ISIL fighters, destroyed weapons, and given space for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim key territory. These strikes have also helped save the lives of thousands of innocent men, women and children.

But this is not our fight alone. American power can make a decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves, nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing their region. And that’s why I’ve insisted that additional U.S. action depended upon Iraqis forming an inclusive government, which they have now done in recent days. So tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.

Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.

First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. 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.

Second, we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground. In June, I deployed several hundred American servicemembers to Iraq to assess how we can best support Iraqi security forces. Now that those teams have completed their work –- and Iraq has formed a government –- we will send an additional 475 servicemembers to Iraq. As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission –- we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment. We’ll also support Iraq’s efforts to stand up National Guard Units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL’s control.

Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people — a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.

Third, we will continue to draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks. Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into and out of the Middle East. And in two weeks, I will chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to further mobilize the international community around this effort.

Fourth, we will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who have been displaced by this terrorist organization. This includes Sunni and Shia Muslims who are at grave risk, as well as tens of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities. We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands.

So this is our strategy. And in each of these four parts of our strategy, America will be joined by a broad coalition of partners. Already, allies are flying planes with us over Iraq; sending arms and assistance to Iraqi security forces and the Syrian opposition; sharing intelligence; and providing billions of dollars in humanitarian aid. Secretary Kerry was in Iraq today meeting with the new government and supporting their efforts to promote unity. And in the coming days he will travel across the Middle East and Europe to enlist more partners in this fight, especially Arab nations who can help mobilize Sunni communities in Iraq and Syria, to drive these terrorists from their lands. This is American leadership at its best: We stand with people who fight for their own freedom, and we rally other nations on behalf of our common security and common humanity.

My administration has also secured bipartisan support for this approach here at home. I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL, but I believe we are strongest as a nation when the President and Congress work together. So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger.

Now, it will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIL. And any time we take military action, there are risks involved –- especially to the servicemen and women who carry out these missions. But I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years. And it is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order.

My fellow Americans, we live in a time of great change. Tomorrow marks 13 years since our country was attacked. Next week marks six years since our economy suffered its worst setback since the Great Depression. Yet despite these shocks, through the pain we have felt and the grueling work required to bounce back, America is better positioned today to seize the future than any other nation on Earth.

Our technology companies and universities are unmatched. Our manufacturing and auto industries are thriving. Energy independence is closer than it’s been in decades. For all the work that remains, our businesses are in the longest uninterrupted stretch of job creation in our history. Despite all the divisions and discord within our democracy, I see the grit and determination and common goodness of the American people every single day –- and that makes me more confident than ever about our country’s future.

Abroad, American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world. It is America that has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorists. It is America that has rallied the world against Russian aggression, and in support of the Ukrainian peoples’ right to determine their own destiny. It is America –- our scientists, our doctors, our know-how –- that can help contain and cure the outbreak of Ebola. It is America that helped remove and destroy Syria’s declared chemical weapons so that they can’t pose a threat to the Syrian people or the world again. And it is America that is helping Muslim communities around the world not just in the fight against terrorism, but in the fight for opportunity, and tolerance, and a more hopeful future.

America, our endless blessings bestow an enduring burden. But as Americans, we welcome our responsibility to lead. From Europe to Asia, from the far reaches of Africa to war-torn capitals of the Middle East, we stand for freedom, for justice, for dignity. These are values that have guided our nation since its founding.

Tonight, I ask for your support in carrying that leadership forward. I do so as a Commander-in-Chief who could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform –- pilots who bravely fly in the face of danger above the Middle East, and servicemembers who support our partners on the ground.

When we helped prevent the massacre of civilians trapped on a distant mountain, here’s what one of them said: “We owe our American friends our lives. Our children will always remember that there was someone who felt our struggle and made a long journey to protect innocent people.”

That is the difference we make in the world. And our own safety, our own security, depends upon our willingness to do what it takes to defend this nation and uphold the values that we stand for –- timeless ideals that will endure long after those who offer only hate and destruction have been vanquished from the Earth.

May God bless our troops, and may God bless the United States of America.

TIME Politics Foreign Policy

Obama Says U.S. Will Bomb ISIS in Syria, Train Rebels

The President addresses the nation in prime time about the next front in a long war against Islamic extremism

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President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he will expand the U.S. air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), lifting restrictions on American strikes in Iraq and for the first time authorizing direct attacks against the militant group in Syria.

Addressing the nation from the White House on Wednesday night, Obama said the U.S. is going on offense, launching “a steady, relentless effort to take out” the extremist group that has seized vast swaths of Iraq and has a large safe haven in Syria, “wherever they exist.”

“So tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” Obama said. “Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [ISIS] through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.”

Over the past month, the U.S. has conducted more than 150 air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq under the limited mission to protect American facilities and provide humanitarian relief. But Obama, who was elected to end two wars, found himself announcing an open-ended campaign against ISIS, as American public opinion has shifted in favor of strikes against the group following the beheading of two American journalists.

“If there is an [ISIS] target that we need to hit in Iraq, we will hit it,” a senior Administration official said Wednesday previewing the speech. “This is something that the President has decided to do,” an official said of strikes in Syria.

“I will not hesitate to take action against [ISIS] in Syria, as well as Iraq,” Obama said, acknowledging there will be risks to American service members. “This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

But what will follow will be far from the “shock and awe” of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Instead, Administration officials described a long-term campaign designed to limit the extremist group’s ability to operate with “impunity” in its territory. “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years,” Obama said, referring to long-standing targeted drone campaigns against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Shabab fighters.

Obama did not put a timetable on the American action against ISIS, saying “it will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIS,” and senior Administration officials would not define what victory against the group would look like during a press briefing before the speech. In recent years, Obama has cast the campaign against Islamist extremists as open-ended, designed to keep fighters from reconsolidating to become a threat to the U.S., while lowering expectations that the threat can ever be truly eliminated.

“We cannot erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm,” Obama said. “That was the case before 9/11, and that remains true today.”

American officials have repeatedly said they are not aware of any active plots by ISIS against the U.S. homeland, but they are concerned by the thousands of foreign fighters, including more than 100 Americans, who are believed to be battling alongside ISIS and could return to the U.S. to carry out attacks in the future.

Obama once again ruled out American troops fighting on the ground directly against ISIS, saying the U.S. is strengthening its military and diplomatic support for the Iraqi government, Kurdish fighters and the moderate Syrian opposition. A senior administration official said the government of Saudi Arabia agreed last week to become a “full partner” in efforts to equip Syrian fighters, including hosting effort to train the forces fighting ISIS.

Secretary of State John Kerry is traveling the region this week to build the international coalition Obama is seeking to take on ISIS. At the meeting of NATO in Wales last week, Obama secured the support of many U.S. allies to assist in the effort against the group, but officials said that so far the U.S. would be the only military directly involved in air strikes against ISIS forces.

More than 1,000 U.S. military personnel are in Iraq protecting American facilities and advising and training Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Obama announced that he will send an additional 475 American troops to Iraq to expand the advisory, training and surveillance missions based in Baghdad and the Kurdish city of Erbil, bringing to 1,600 the number of U.S. troops in the country.

The speech was Obama’s first prime-time address from the White House to the American people in a year, the last one coming as the President then sought congressional authorization for military strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons on his own people. Obama maintained Wednesday that he has the authority to act on his own in Iraq and Syria as long as necessary, but is open to a specific congressional authorization for his actions. A senior Administration official said Obama is relying on his constitutional powers as Commander in Chief, and on the post–Sept. 11, 2001, Authorization for the Use of Military Force against al-Qaeda to act against ISIS without explicit congressional approval.

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