Free Republic

ANKARA--U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday played down chances of an imminent broad coalition against Islamic State militants, illustrating the difficulty Washington faces winning commitment for a military campaign in the heart of the Middle East. Kerry met Turkish leaders to try to secure support for U.S.-led action against Islamic State, but Ankara's reluctance to play a frontline role highlighted the challenges of building a willing coalition to wage what will likely be a tough offensive. Kerry has been touring the Middle East to build support for President Barack Obama's plan, announced on Wednesday, to strike both sides...

A day after Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned against "war fever," administration officials on Friday said the U.S. is indeed waging a war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, otherwise known as ISIL). However, the administration is still trying to draw a distinction between this new "war" and the previous war the U.S. waged in Iraq, which included putting American troops on the ground in Iraq for combat operations. "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 Obama administration said for the first time Friday that the United States is “at war” with ISIS militants. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, used the language at least three times during his daily briefing with reporters. “The U.S. is at war with ISIL in the same way the U.S. is at war with al Qaeda,” he said, using an alternate acronym for the group. Minutes earlier, a Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, used similar terminology. “This is not the Iraq war of 2002,” he told reporters. “But, make no mistake, we know we are at war...

(P) resident Obama came into office in 2009, telling the American people he would end the wars against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Six years later, facing a broader and more lethal terrorist threat, he is now telling us why we need to go to war again. To say Obama can't seem to make up his mind in the war on terrorism (a designation his administration stopped using the day he entered the Oval Office), is putting it mildly. If anything, his naive plan of withdrawal and retreat and the way it was carried out in the face of a...

The United States is at war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), the White House and Pentagon said Friday, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly declined to use that phrase. “In the same way that we are at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates around the globe, we are at war with ISIL,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby echoed that sentiment, telling reporters that while the effort was "not the Iraq war," they should "make no mistake, we know we...

The use of the W-word could have both legal and political implications. Top Obama Administration officials have publicly given conflicting accounts in recent days over a fundamental question of the new U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria: Is the nation at war? With 158 airstrikes carried out on ISIS targets and more than 1,600 troops deployed to Iraq in various capacities, Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC News Thursday that the nation was not in fact at war with the militant group. But by Friday afternoon, the White House and the Pentagon were...