{"id":107763,"date":"2015-12-10T01:24:38","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T08:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-cory-gardner-obamas-isis-strategy-ineffective\/"},"modified":"2015-12-10T01:24:38","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T08:24:38","slug":"sen-cory-gardner-obamas-isis-strategy-ineffective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-cory-gardner-obamas-isis-strategy-ineffective\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Cory Gardner: Obama\u2019s ISIS strategy \u2018ineffective\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gardner\"
Gardner<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner on Tuesday said President Barack Obama\u2019s strategy to defeat the Islamic State terrorist group is the \u201csame ineffective approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gardner, a Yuma Republican, joined other senators in sending a letter to Obama after the president\u2019s rare Oval Office address on Sunday. Obama called on the Republican-controlled Congress to authorize military force to fight the terrorist group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Congress believes, as I do, that we are at war with ISIL,\u201d Obama said, using another acronym for the Islamic State, \u201cit should go ahead and vote to authorize the continued use of military force against these terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president has been demanding the authorization for over a year.<\/p>\n

The issue has spiraled since last week\u2019s San Bernardino killings, which are believed to have at least been inspired by ISIS. Furthering the debate is last month\u2019s Paris attacks, which left 130 dead.<\/p>\n

The president has pushed to train and equip Iraqi and Syrian rebel forces, and he has sent military trainers to Iraq and U.S. special operations to Syria. Obama rejects the idea of sending combat troops, stating that the move would only help ISIS recruit.<\/p>\n

In the letter sent Tuesday with Gardner\u2019s support, the senators say the president must \u201cbreak this stalemate,\u201d while calling on him to outline a military strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the near term, our principal strategic goal must be to shatter the ISIS narrative of invincibility, in order to stem this group\u2019s ability to recruit or inspire additional jihadists\u2026\u201d the letter states.<\/p>\n

The senators say strategy must include recapturing Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq. They suggest embedding U.S. military advisers to bolster Iraqi security and ground partners, while deploying air support.<\/p>\n

Republicans have grown especially concerned with Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks, in which at least one suspect was said to have entered Europe as a Syrian refugee. In the letter Tuesday, the senators propose safe zones inside Syria for refugees in an effort to curb a mass exodus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American people are understandably concerned in the aftermath of the horrific attack in San Bernardino,\u201d the letter states. \u201cTo safeguard our own national security, we must step up the military fight against ISIS as soon as possible, but it will require sustained, long-term American engagement to resolve the deeper problems that have allowed ISIS to incubate and gather strength in Syria and Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n

pmarcus@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

senators calling for swift action<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[2478,13,24,945],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-act-of-terror","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-u-s-sen-cory-gardner","tag-united-states-government"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107763"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}