L.A. Times Defends Obama on ISIS; Polls Disagree

The Los Angeles Times published an editorial on Tuesday defending President Barack Obama’s policy of confronting ISIS (Islamic State) through “strategic patience” and rallied behind his long-held opposition to sending U.S. troops to the Middle East. However, most of America doesn’t agree.

A poll conducted by CNN shows that 58% of Americans think the war against Islamic State militants is going badly and that 47% are in favor of placing boots on the ground to combat ISIS. Both those numbers have gone up risen since the fall. Moreover, nearly half the respondents from Obama’s own Democratic Party (46%) are reportedly unhappy with his handling of foreign policy with regard to ISIS.

Yet the Times wrote that Obama’s multinational effort and promise that “U.S. forces wouldn’t engage in ‘long-term, large scale ground combat operations'” against the Islamic State “remains the proper strategy.”

The Times also declared: “Portraying the campaign against Islamic State as a war on Islam wouldn’t just be inaccurate; it would be incendiary and self-defeating.”

Recent murders carried out by self-proclaimed Muslims who committed said atrocities in the name of Islam include:

• the brutal beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians by a Libyan affiliate of ISIS;
• a captured Jordanian pilot burned alive in an animal cage by ISIS militants in Syria;
• the Paris-based Charlie Hebdo massacre;
• rhe targeted murder of Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris the next day; and
• a gunman (Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein) inspired by ISIS propaganda to kill a film director present at free speech debate in Denmark before opening fire outside of a synagogue and killing a security guard there.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called for a “religious revolution” and reformation within Islam in light of the rise in global terrorism carried out by Islamic fundamentalists.

Al-Sisi came to power following the military usurpation and overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has had significant presence in the Obama administration as of late.

Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz