Secretary of State John Kerry Monday struck an optimistic note on the fight against the Islamic State, but admitted that the pace needs to be "picked up" when it comes to the United States' strategy against the militants.
"People need to not panic," Kerry told the
"Today" show's Savannah Guthrie in an exclusive interview Monday morning. "There is a strategy in place, growing by the day."
Kerry was speaking from Abu Dhabi in his first stop during his visit to the Middle East this week. He also plans visits to Israel and the West Bank, and will meet with senior government officials about Syria, NBC News reports.
Kerry told her that he believes ISIS will be defeated, but meanwhile, "I can assure you that we don't have a specific threat" in the United States.
But still he admitted, as "there is always the threat of some actor, some person who slipped through. That's the world we live in today. Ever since 9/11, many experts have consistently said it's not a question of if, but when."
Every single effort is being made, though, by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and more to stop terrorism attacks, said Kerry, and "we have averted many different plots against the United States."
"The pace has to be picked up and more needs to be done, and everybody understands that," Kerry said.
Part of the issue, he said, is that war has been going on in Syria for four years, when it was only a year ago that a coalition was formed to fight that threat.
"People are traveling all over the world, even from the United States, to fight in Syria," Kerry told Guthrie. But since the coalition has been formed, he continued, 25 percent of the territory ISIS controlled has been reclaimed, and the terrorists' leadership has been "eliminated from the battlefield."
Obama has come under some criticism from even people like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein about his response, and Kerry conceded that he doesn't think "anybody believes it is happening fast enough."
"We are escalating our steps," he said. "Before Paris took place, the president took major decisions to put additional people on the ground."
Meanwhile, ISIS is not expanding by moving on to other countries, said Kerry, but instead have attracted terrorists and sympathizers already in those countries to pledge allegiance to them because of what they are doing in Syria and Iraq.
"ISIS is not 10 feet tall," Kerry said, and he has "absolute confidence" that ISIS will be defeated "with the help of all nations united."