Obama admits anti-IS campaign is helping Syrian President

President Barack Obama is acknowledging that the United States-led military campaign against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria is helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a man the United Nations has accused of war crimes. In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” Sunday, the president said the airstrikes in Syria are still necessary because, unlike the Assad regime, the Islamic State and other radical rebel groups pose an actual danger to the U.S. Those groups began as an anti-Assad militia before spreading around the region; without them, government forces would be more easily able to consolidate power. President Obama also said that intelligence agencies underestimated the Islamic State threat and overstated the Iraqi army’s ability to fight. Obama added that the U.S. couldn’t use a “whack-a-mole” strategy to fight Islamic extremists wherever they may pop up, and insisted that there would be no ground troops.

In the Muslim world right now, there is a cancer that has grown for too long that suggests that it is acceptable to kill innocent people who worship a different god. And that kind of extremism, unfortunately, means that we’re going to see for some time the possibility that in a whole bunch of different countries, radical groups may spring up.

President Barack Obama

Earlier Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner said that there may be “no choice” but to send in American troops if the mix of U.S.-led airstrikes and a ground campaign reliant on Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and moderate Syrian rebels fails to destroy the Islamic State fighters.

We have no choice. These are barbarians. They intend to kill us. And if we don’t destroy them first, we’re going to pay the price.

John Boehner

Politics obama syria