On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence said that “ISIS is more powerful now, and more deadly than Al Qaeda was on September 11.”
He urged the president to make a clear case of the threat of ISIS and the sustained offensive needed to stop them, arguing “it’s important for the president as a leader to say why this is not just about Iraq, why this is not just about Syria, why this is a direct threat to the US mainland, and why American lives are at risk, and why more lives will be at risk if we don’t take action than if we do. So the president has to stop talking about this in such a limited way like we’re going to clear the mountain, we’re going to retake the dam, and then acting as if that’s enough. He has to make it clear that this is going to be a long, sustained effort.”
King also stated that a US campaign against ISIS must include Syria because, “I don’t see how we can defeat ISIS unless we go into Syria with, I believe, massive airstrikes. It’s not about Syria, it’s not about Iraq, it’s about our homeland, it’s about our national security. And I believe the president has the obligation if he’s serious, and I think he is, about going after ISIS, not just stopping ISIS, but actually destroying ISIS, that we have to go to Syria because that’s again, that is where it generated from and that is a key location.”
He additionally called for arming Kurdish fighters and embedding US troops with the Iraqis.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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