President Barack Obama says the U.S. needs to take even more action in countering the threat of radical Islamic terrorism.
Obama said Monday he wants to use more diplomatic and military options to fight ISIS.
He said he has directed the U and the U.-N.
to work together to tackle this threat, and he urged the leaders of other nations to join in.
“The United States must be prepared to do more,” Obama said in a statement Monday.
“We have to do something about this threat.
This is an important challenge that must be tackled, and we have to find the right way to do it.”
Obama was speaking to the nation Monday, the day after ISIS declared a caliphate across parts of Iraq and Syria, where it has waged an aggressive and violent insurgency against U.N.-backed government forces and other foreign troops.
ISIS militants have been battling U.A.E. forces and allied Kurdish forces since the summer.
The White House said Tuesday that U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday the U of A.E.-led coalition is taking a more aggressive role in combating the threat.
Cameron, in an interview with ITV News, said the alliance is targeting ISIS, not just its self-declared caliphate, and that Britain has been training and assisting Iraqi forces to confront the threat as well as other forces in the region.
As a result, Cameron said the U-K.
will be launching airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and will be sending a battalion of British troops to train Iraqi forces there, which would be part of the U -K.
counter-ISIS mission.
Earlier Monday, U.C. Berkeley’s political science professor and former U.P. president William James warned of the “catastrophic consequences” of U.T.O.S., the new global threat list that Obama created as part of his 2016 presidential campaign.
James said the list, which was leaked to the press, is a way for the U .
S. and the international community to justify its decision to send in more troops in Iraq.
James told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Obama’s decision to increase the U –P.
troop increase, which is currently 2,000, is part of a “plan” to send a message to ISIS and other terror groups that the U S. will not stand idly by while they threaten our way of life.
According to James, Obama’s military surge has also contributed to the rise of ISIS, which he said “is not a threat to us, but to them.”
James said he was surprised that the president has used the word “radical” to describe ISIS, but the president’s announcement was “a mistake” and is likely to fuel ISIS’s recruitment and propaganda efforts.