King: Now is the Time to Strike ISIS and Obama Needs to Take Action

Op-Ed

By Peter King

The video of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria beheading American journalist James Foley demonstrated the depraved evil and barbaric savagery of terrorism.

I support President Obama's statement condemning ISIS' murder of Foley. And I supported air strikes that blunted ISIS' genocide against Christians and others.

However, the President must say and do more, as part of a concerted strategy to defeat the ISIS terror state -- which poses a threat to Americans at home as well as abroad.

Prime Minister David Cameron wrote Sunday how ISIS "poses a direct and deadly threat to Britain." President Obama should be similarly forthright about its threat to the U.S.

ISIS is stronger than Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan in 2001. It is far wealthier and battle-hardened than Osama Bin Laden's henchmen.

Pre-9/11 Al Qaeda had a handful of U.S. adherents. ISIS includes more than 100 radicalized American Muslims.

ISIS' predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq, plotted to attack the U.S. since 2006. Two of its terrorists, who killed Americans in Iraq, were arrested planning an attack in Kentucky in 2011.

In May, an ISIS operative who traveled back and forth from Florida conducted a suicide attack in Syria. This month, an ISIS sympathizer was arrested at Kennedy Airport. We must assume ISIS members are in our country now.

It's not a question of when ISIS attempts again to strike the homeland, but how and where. We need to do everything we can to disrupt this coming attack.

Instead of telling ISIS what he's not going to do, Obama needs to take decisive action.

Without delay, he should order massive air strikes, launch Special Operations raids to capture and interrogate terror leaders, embed more U.S. advisers with Iraqi and Kurdish troops and line up more allies.

And he needs to remind the American people we are engaged in a long, twilight struggle against Islamist terror. And then, Republicans and Democrats, and all Americans, should stand with our commander-in-chief.

Hit ISIS harder, Mr. President, before it's too late.

Pete King (R-L.I.) chairs the House subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence.

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