Hillary Clinton outlined her policy to defeat ISIS during a foreign policy speech Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations in which she pressed Congress to unite behind President Obama's efforts. Monica Alba reports:
Emphasizing that the "time for delay is over," Clinton implored Congress to pass an updated authorization to use military force.
"This is a worldwide fight and America must lead it," she said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. [...]
Clinton outlined three key tenets of her national security plan: defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East; disrupt and dismantle a growing terrorist network; and strengthen American defenses against external and homegrown threats.
Clinton said that airstrikes would have to be “combined with ground forces" in order to reclaim territory that ISIS has already taken. However, she added that she didn't envision deploying hundreds of thousands of troops to the region.
"If we have learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s that local people and nations have to secure their own communities. We can help them, and we should, but we cannot substitute for them."
Clinton also parted ways with President Obama over his current strategy of "containing" ISIS.
"ISIS is demonstrating new ambition, reach and capabilities. 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."
She cast the battle in moral terms, but said the fight was not against Islam.
"The bottom line is that we are in a contest of ideas against an ideology of hate, and we have to win. Let’s be clear, though, Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism."
Clinton has been a strong supporter of continuing to take in Syrian refugees, telling supporters in Dallas Tuesday that the GOP's "hateful rhetoric" against refugees is compromising our values.
"We can't act as though we are shutting the door to people in need without undermining who we are as Americans," she told a crowd of supporters.