President Obama hosted a summit of almost 100 world leaders at the United Nations to discuss the issue of ISIS and violent extremism.
Obama, in explaining the effort involved at the beginning of his speech, said, “There are going to be successes and there are going to be setbacks. This is not a conventional battle. This is a long-term campaign.”
Not very different from his speech to the United Nations, Obama said that he was willing to work with both Russia and Iran in order to deal with the threat of ISIS.
Apart from stressing over the long-term nature of this ‘fight’, Obama also said that law enforcement should not profile or even target people based on their faith as ISIS is making an effort to target Muslim communities themselves.
He goes on to explain why this is long-term, in saying, “There are problems that have built up over decades that are expressing themselves and manifesting themselves in organizations like ISIL (ISIS).”
As for the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who was sitting next to Obama, he added that improvements were made against this fight against ISIS and thanked the coalition of 60 countries who assisted Iraq. He also stressed that neighboring countries should stop the influx of foreign fighters while also stopping financing for these terrorist groups.
Obama finally said that all nations have to work together to reject such extremism that is beginning to affect young people as well.
Prior to this summit, both the State and Treasury Department announced sanctions against 25 individuals as well as 5 terror groups – one of which was ISIS.