In his last State of the Union address Tuesday night, US President Barack Obama attempted to calm the tone of the US national security debate, insisting the Islamic State jihadist group was not an existential threat.
While he acknowledged that al-Qaeda and Islamic State were a threat the the American people, he stressed that “over the top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands.
“Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped.
But they do not threaten our national existence,” Obama said.
“We don’t need to build them up to show that we’re serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that (IS) is representative of one of the world’s largest religions.
We just need to call them what they are – killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed.”
