President Barack Obama laid out a forceful new blueprint yesterday for deeper US engagement in the Middle East, telling the UN General Assembly the Islamic State understood only "the language of force" and the United States would "work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death".
In a much-anticipated address two days after he expanded the US-led military campaign into Syria against the Islamic State, also known as Isis, Mr Obama said, "Today, I ask the world to join in this effort," declaring, "we will not succumb to threats; and we will demonstrate that the future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy."
“Those who have joined Isis should leave the battlefield while they can,” he said in a blunt declaration of his intentions.
Global challenges
“We will neither tolerate terrorist safe havens, nor act as an occupying power,” Mr Obama said. “We will take action against threats to our security, and our allies, while building an architecture of counterterrorism cooperation. The brutality of terrorists in Syria and
Iraq
forces us to look into the heart of darkness.”
The military campaign against the Islamic State, Obama said, was only the most urgent of a raft of global challenges in which the US had no choice but to play a leadership role.
Mr Obama also said the US would train and equip moderate opposition forces in Syria to counter the government of President Bashar Assad, and he repeated calls for a political settlement to end a civil war that has killed more than 200,000 people.
“Cynics may argue that such an outcome can never come to pass. But there is no other way for this madness to end – whether one year from now or 10,” he said. “I can promise you America will remain engaged in the region, and we are prepared to engage in that effort.”
Wartime president
It was a starkly different president than the one who addressed skeptical world leaders at the General Assembly last year, weeks after calling off a threatened missile strike on Syria over the use of chemical weapons.
Mr Obama spoke with the urgency of a wartime president, seeking to rally allies for what he said would be a momentous struggle against the forces of Islamic extremism in the Middle East.
Still, it remained unclear whether his speech represented a fundamental reconsideration of his policy or a reluctant response to the threat posed by the Islamic State, which took on emotional resonance for Americans after the posting of videos of US hostages who were beheaded.
Mr Obama made clear that the United States would act only if surrounded by a broad coalition, dwelling on his success in signing up five Arab nations to take part in the airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.
Obama also addressed young Muslims directly, appealing to them to resist the blandishments of violent jihad. – (New York Times service)