The same president whose foreign policy has been defined by hesitation and vacillation in the face of threats to the country declared to Americans Wednesday night that he “will not hesitate to take action” against ISIS and claimed that a “core principle" of his presidency is to hunt down any who threaten America.
“I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are,” Obama said in the 15-minute speech. “That means I will not hesitate to take action against [ISIS] in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”
In a speech in which he spent more time explaining what the mission was not—not another ground war, not unilateral, not another Iraq or Afghanistan—than what it was, the president did provide a few details about what he was planning to do, including sending an additional 475 troops to support Iraq’s military. He also announced that he was going to ask Congress to approve a program that would train and equip moderate Syrian rebels currently battling both ISIS and Bashar al-Assad’s government forces.
Continually stressing that this was not a unilateral effort, the president said we would create a “broad coalition” to “degrade” and “ultimately destroy” ISIS through “a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”
Despite the president's insistence that he "will not hesitate" to take the fight to ISIS, as the National Journal's George E. Condon Jr. puts it, "Never has a declaration of war been so cautious."
