President Obama delivered just his third Oval Office address to the nation Sunday evening, exhorting Americans to "not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear" in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. He explained his administration's approach to fighting ISIS and answered his critics' call for more war. He also addressed the epidemic in gun violence, calling for Congressional action on limiting access guns.
Obama explained the four elements of his administration's strategy to fight ISIS, which begins with taking out "terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary. In Iraq and Syria, airstrikes are taking out ISIL leaders, heavy weapons, oil tankers, infrastructure." The second element is providing "training and equipment to tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting ISIL on the ground so that we take away their safe havens." He pointed out that in both countries, the U.S. has deployed Special Operations Forces to "accelerate that offensive," and that the U.S. has "stepped up this effort since the attacks in Paris." He discussed the third part of the strategy, "working with friends and allies to stop ISIL's operations—to disrupt plots, cut off their financing, and prevent them from recruiting more fighters." And finally, he discussed the efforts of the international community "to establish a process—and timeline—to pursue ceasefires and a political resolution to the Syrian war." That, he argued, will allow both the Syrian people, our allies, and Russia "to focus on the common goal of destroying ISIL—a group that threatens us all."
Then he turned to what Congress needs to be doing to for both this fight against ISIS and for the gun violence epidemic. He called for Congress to "go ahead and vote to authorize the continued use of military force against these terrorists." Obama sent a war authorization to Congress back in February, but congressional leaders have ignored it. He also said that "Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun," legislation that Senate Republicans rejected last week, and to enact measures to "make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino. […] What we can do -- and must do -- is make it harder for them to kill."
Then Obama answered the war-mongering among Republican presidential candidates:
We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria. That’s what groups like ISIL want. They know they can't defeat us on the battlefield. ISIL fighters were part of the insurgency that we faced in Iraq. But they also know that if we occupy foreign lands, they can maintain insurgencies for years, killing thousands of our troops, draining our resources, and using our presence to draw new recruits.He was particularly strong in rejecting the racist rhetoric coming out of the Republican campaign:
Here's what else we cannot do. We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. […] [I]t is the responsibility of all Americans—of every faith—to reject discrimination. It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country. It’s our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently. […] That kind of divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL. Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes—and, yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country. We have to remember that.He reminded viewers "that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what religion you practice, you are equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes of the law," and that "what makes us exceptional" is that the nation has always met challenges "by coming together around our common ideals as one nation, as one people."
That's a particularly salient message for the coming week in which Congress is going to have to pass an omnibus spending bill to keep government functioning, a process that is going to show all the ugly the Republican party can bring to bear.
