President Obama with congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday, where he briefed them on his plans for combating the Sunni militant group ISIS.
President Obama is prepared to authorize airstrikes in Syria, a senior administration official said on Tuesday, taking the military campaign against the Sunni militant group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, into new and unpredictable terrain.
But Mr. Obama is still wrestling with a series of challenges, including how to train and equip a viable ground force to fight ISIS inside Syria, how to intervene without aiding President Bashar al-Assad, and how to enlist potentially reluctant partners like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
In a prime-time address on Wednesday evening, Mr. Obama is to explain to Americans his strategy for “degrading and ultimately destroying the terrorist group,” the White House said in a statement. People briefed on the president’s plans described a long-term campaign far more complex than the targeted strikes the United States has used against Al Qaeda in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere.
Mr. Obama has resisted military engagement in Syria for more than three years, out of fear early on that arming the rebels who oppose Mr. Assad would fail to alter the balance in the civil war while more direct military intervention could have spillover effects in the volatile region.
When he threatened Syria with a missile strike last year after Mr. Assad’s forces used chemical weapons, implacable opposition in Congress led him to shelve the plan. Now, however, the threat from ISIS has changed both the American political climate and his calculations.
On Tuesday, the president briefed Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate about his plans. Mr. Obama told them he believed he had the authority needed to order an expanded operation, though he would “welcome action by the Congress that would aid the overall effort,” the White House statement said.
But Congress is divided on the need for a vote on military action before the midterm elections, and both sides appeared to be searching for a way to enlist congressional support without an explicit authorization of force. One way under discussion would be for lawmakers to approve $500 million in funding to train and arm Syrian rebels who would fight ISIS — legislation that has been languishing on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Obama’s speech to the nation, on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is the culmination of weeks of anguished internal deliberations, followed by days of intense lobbying of allies by the president — at a NATO meeting in Wales, with Congress, and even over a three-hour dinner Monday night with members of the Democratic and Republican foreign-policy establishment.
The White House has been galvanized by the beheadings of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven J. Sotloff, each by a masked ISIS fighter. The harrowing images, captured on video and circulated around the world, have turned American public opinion in favor of military action against the militants, recent polls show, and appear to have moved a president who had long resisted military engagement in Syria. And the United States has conducted airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq.
But Mr. Obama is facing complications as he works to assemble support at home and a coalition abroad. The Turkish government, for example, has been fearful of an aggressive retaliation against ISIS because of concerns that the group would harm the 49 Turkish citizens it is holding, including its consul general, after ISIS raided the Turkish Consulate in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met with Turkish leaders to discuss their contribution to the effort, but emerged with no concrete commitments. A Turkish official expressed concerns that weapons sent to Syrian rebels to fight ISIS could end up in the hands of Kurdish fighters whom Turkey regards as a terrorist group.
The White House is sending Secretary of State John Kerry to Saudi Arabia this week to enlist the Saudis, who have been a vital source of funding to groups opposing the Assad !!!
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