The State Department indicated Monday that the Obama administration wouldn’t be taking any new policy steps in response to last week’s terrorist attack in Paris, except to say that the “sense of urgency” in the U.S. has been “redoubled” and “underscored” by the attacks.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked what specific new steps would be taken after the attack that killed 129 people on Friday. But instead of listing new things, he largely recounted the administration’s ongoing plan.
His comments came after President Obama said it would be a “mistake” to send ground troops to the Middle East, and said he would continue pursuing the plan in place now.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575923
“First of all, we already have a strategy in place, we talked a lot about this over the past months,” Toner began when asked what new steps would be forthcoming. “We’ve been enhancing that strategy in the past weeks, frankly, with the inclusion of putting a special forces contingent on the ground, accelerating our support for these groups fighting in Syria.”
“The effort to destroy and degrade ISIL, which obviously, the urgency of that was made yet again very clear,” he added. “That goal … is in conjunction with our other efforts, which is to bring about a political resolution to the civil war there between Assad and the modern Syrian opposition.”
“Defeat Daesh or ISIL, stabilize the region, and to put a political transition to end the civil war,” he said in summarizing the administration’s ongoing plan.
Toner did note the political recommendation made over the weekend that Syria hold elections for new leaders. “We’ve got specific steps for the first time to advance a ceasefire and put forward a political process,” he said.
But it’s not clear whether, when or how any of those political recommendations will be implemented.
Toner concluded by saying that since the Paris attacks, the “sense of urgency” has been heightened in the U.S.
“So, you know, there was already an urgency here, a sense of urgency, that’s been redoubled, or that’s been obviously underscored by events in Paris,” Toner said. “We’re going to look for ways we can increase our efforts across the board as we go forward, but we’re already applying a lot of pressure on ISIL. We’ve got to do better, obviously.”
“I don’t know if it was quite clear in what that means in terms of new after 130 people were killed in Paris,” a reporter at the State Department replied after Toner’s response.
