Clinton: US Must Push Arab Leaders To Confront Islamic State
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton said America must lead the effort to fight Islamic State militants, but she called on Arab nations to increase their involvement in the wake of deadly attacks in Paris.
In a sweeping address to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination laid out her vision for how to heighten pressure on the Islamic State and combat terrorism at home.
She said time is of the essence, 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported.
"ISIS is demonstrating new ambition, reach, and capabilities," she said. "We have to break the group's momentum, and then its back. Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS but to defeat and destroy ISIS."
Clinton vowed to keep American troops out of Syria. And she said the U.S. must accept refugees from the war-torn region even as the nation toughens its defenses and increases intelligence capabilities.
Americans, Clinton added, must overcome partisan battles and rise above personal fear to combat the threat of jihadism across the globe.
"Islam is not our adversary,'' she said, arguing that demonizing the religion, "gives these criminals, these murderers, more standing than they deserve.''
Clinton spoke less than a week after a shooting and bombing attack in Paris killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the carnage, stoking fears of future attacks across Europe and in the U.S.
Clinton laid out her plan a few hours ahead of her main Democratic presidential rival, Bernie Sanders, who spoke in Washington.
A day earlier, GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush spelled out his national security proposal at the Citadel in South Carolina. He called for sending more regular American troops the Middle East to fight the IS group, adding to the more than 3,000 U.S. troops that President Barack Obama has deployed to Iraq.
Other Republicans have also called for more force, CBS2's Dick Brennan reported.
"ISIS can only be defeated through a ground force, the bulk of which is made up of Sunnis themselves who reject their ideology and defeat them militarily," said Sen. Marco Rubio.
"We need to go on the ground and in the air, and we need to destroy ISIS. We can't wait," said Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Clinton reiterated her support for a no-fly zone over the northern region of the country and backed the president's use of special forces.
She also believes the U.S. must lead the way and form a coalition with other nations to attack through technology, intelligence and strikes, Papa reported.
"Air strikes will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS," she said.
She urged Turkey and Saudi Arabia to redirect their attention from battling Kurdish forces and the conflict in Yemen to the fight against Islamic State militants. And she promised that her broader approach would not lessen the pressure on Iran to comply with the recently completed nuclear deal.
"This is a time for American leadership. No other country can rally the world to defeat ISIS and win the generational struggle to defeat jihadism,'' she said. "The entire world must be part of this fight, but we must lead it.''
Clinton also urged Congress to "swiftly'' pass an updated authorization to use military force against the militants. But she strongly opposes repeating strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan when the U.S. sent in hundreds of thousands of troops.
"If we've learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's that local people and nations have to secure their own communities," she said. "We can help them, and we should, but we cannot substitute for them. But we can and should support local and regional ground forces in carrying out this mission."
Meanwhile, the House rebuked Obama by ignoring his veto threat and approved a Republican bill erecting fresh barriers for Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the United States.
Thursday's passage came on a 289-137 vote, exceeding the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto.
The roll call came after White House officials visited the Capitol and lobbied Democrats to oppose the legislation. Dozens of them ended up joining Republicans, anyway, and supported the measure.
The curbs would in effect suspend the entry of Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the U.S. for months or years.
Republicans said tighter restrictions are needed following last week's Paris terrorist attacks. Obama and most Democrats said the system was already safe and the U.S. shouldn't abandon its tradition of accepting refugees.
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