"U.S. Militarism Brings Chaos": As Obama Plans a War onISIS, a Call for a Middle East-Led Response
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Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He is also editor-at-large of the Beirut-based newspaper, The Daily Star. His latest article is "Avoid a Rerun of the War on Terror."
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President Obama has launched an effort to rally Congress and the public behind a sustained offensive against the militant group, Islamic State. Obama is set to meet with Congress on Tuesday followed by a national address Wednesday. The United States says it will lead the offensive against the Islamic State with a so-called "core coalition" of 10 countries. The White House says the fight could last beyond the end of President Obama’s term in early 2017. Meanwhile on Sunday, Arab League foreign ministers met in Cairo and announced they would cooperate with efforts to combat militants who have overrun parts of Iraq and Syria. Their resolution did not explicitly support the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State, but suggested it would back the effort.
We are joined by Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut and editor-at-large of the Beirut-based newspaper, The Daily Star. "Combining American militarism with Arab dictatorships is probably the stupidest recipe that anybody could possibly come up with to try to fight jihadi movements like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and others," Khouri says. "It was that combination of Arab autocracy and American militarism that actually nurtured and let these movements expand."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama has begun to unveil his strategy for an offensive against the Islamic State that could last as long as three years and beyond the end of his administration. This comes as the United States has carried out more than 140 airstrikes against ISIS fighters in Iraq in the past month. Over the weekend, American warplanes launched fresh strikes against militants near Haditha Dam, less than 150 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
On Tuesday, Obama is set to meet with Congress to discuss the new strategy; on Wednesday, scheduled to give a major address to give more details to the American public. He first outlined the plan Sunday on Meet the Press. Obama says he has ruled out the redeployment of ground troops in Iraq but has left open the possibility of airstrikes in Syria, as well as economic and political measures.
At the NATO summit Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the U.S. will lead the offensive against the Islamic State with a so-called "core coalition" of 10 countries. The group includes Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Italy, Poland, Denmark and Turkey—the only Muslim state. On Sunday, Arab League foreign ministers met in Cairo and announced they would cooperate with efforts to combat militants who have overrun parts of Iraq and Syria. Their resolution did not explicitly support the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State but suggested it would back the effort. This is Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby.
SECRETARY GENERAL NABIL ELARABY: [translated] This matter is neither political nor security-related only, but we will discuss it from all directions to block it and stop its sources. This requires cooperation between different ministers and preemptive meetings and researching the subject from all its angles. However, the combat still stands, and the confrontation. It is not a simple decision, the decision to confront these phenomena, as many states demand. Also, by working on blocking the sources of terrorism through fighting its ideology, seizing its funding, remedying reasons and circumstances that led to the outbreak of this extremist terrorist phenomenon.
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