The White House said on Friday that the US is at war with the Islamic State (ISIL), seeking to rub out another flap over its Syria policy.
In a series of television interviews, US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to be reluctant to term the expansion of US operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as “war.”
Pressed to clear up doubts about how US President Barack Obama sees the conflict, the White House and Pentagon left little doubt.
Photo: AFP
“The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way that we are at war with al-Qaeda and its al-Qaeda affiliates all around the globe,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said that the US was not fighting the last Iraq war and used similar language to Earnest’s.
“But make no mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL in the same way we’re at war and continue to be at war with al-Qaeda and its affiliates,” Kirby said.
Obama is scheduled to be in Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday to receive a briefing from top commanders at US Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East.
In interviews on Thursday, as Kerry toured the Middle East building an anti-Islamic State coalition, he was reluctant to use the term “war” in referring to the US campaign, telling people not to indulge in “war fever.”
“We’re engaged in a major counterterrorism operation and it’s going to be a long-term counterterrorism operation,” Kerry told CBS News. “I think ‘war’ is the wrong terminology and analogy, but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity.”
The dispute over wording might seem trivial when US planes and drones have been pounding Islamic State targets in Iraq for weeks in more than 160 operations.
However, it indicates the administration is skittish about using language that could alarm Americans weary of years of foreign conflict and who embraced Obama’s vow to “end” the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq during two presidential election campaigns.
“The first thing that’s important for people to understand is the president has made clear how the strategy that he is pursuing in Iraq and Syria to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL is different than the strategy that was pursued in the previous Iraq War,” Earnest said.
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