A senator with oversight responsibility for foreign policy and homeland security told
Newsmax TV on Thursday that he was unconvinced by President Barack Obama's prime-time promise to vanquish the Islamic State (ISIS).
"He did not convince me, and so I don't think he convinced potential coalition partners, allies, or the American public that he is totally committed to his goal," Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner.
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"I just take away that that was pretty much a political speech, saying the things he pretty well had to in the face of public opinion — which is way ahead of him," said Johnson, who serves on the Senate Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs commitees.
Obama said
in Wednesday's televised address that U.S. airstrikes against the forces of the Islamic State, or ISIS, will expand for the first time beyond Iraq into Syria — where the violent Sunni movement's fighters also have seized territory and committed atrocities including the videotaped beheadings of two captive Americans.
The president vowed that ground forces to combat ISIS will be indigenous, with some American troops on hand for support, and that the U.S. will not re-fight another Middle East war on the scale of the Iraq conflict.
Johnson said that's where the president tripped over himself.
"Last night in his summation, the final paragraph, he said our own safety, our own security, depends on our willingness to do what it takes to defend this nation," said Johnson. "Nice words, but he contradicted that very statement earlier when he took actions off the table."
"He is not totally, 100 percent committed to the very goal he stated, which is ultimately destroy ISIS," he said.
Asked why not, Johnson said, "That's his ideology I guess."
"He just has such a reluctance, such a revulsion, to actually leading, utilizing America's military strength," Johnson said. "Remember, this is the president that, in the first part of his term, apologized for America. He doesn't believe America is a force for good in the world. He thinks our involvement in the world actually makes matters worse, that we upset people because we engage in the world, because we lead."
Johnson said that while Wednesday's speech offered no indiciation of a strategy for combatting ISIS, Obama, in fact, has had an overarching foreign policy strategy — one that events have shown to be inadequate.
"It's been a strategy of apology, a strategy of denial, a strategy of withdrawal," said Johnson. "As the Wall Street Journal [wrote], peace through withdrawal does not work.
"We are witnessing the disastrous consequences of his historic blunder [of] not leaving a stabilizing force behind in Iraq," said Johnson. "That's why Iraq is disintegrating, and that's why ISIS was able to rise from the ashes of what was al-Qaida in Iraq."
Johnson said that Obama's own role in those disastrous reversals has made it difficult for him to either face up to the ISIS threat or communicate it effectively to the rest of the country.
"Part of it is, he simply refuses to acknowledge he lost the peace," said Johnson.
"He has allowed events to spin out of control and has brought us to this very point where now our options are limited and it is going to take fare more resolute, strong action," said Johnson, "and I'm just not sure this president really has it in him to act."
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