House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday he’ll wait to hear President Obama’s plan for dealing with the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria before weighing in about what Congress will do.
Speaking after a private meeting with House GOP rank and file for the first time since returning from the summer recess, Boehner repeatedly deflected questions about some members of his conference who who in recent days have been calling for Congress to take up legislation authorizing more aggressive military force to defeat the group, which is spreading violence and instability throughout parts of the Middle East.
“What I’m hoping to hear from the president today is a strategy that goes after ISIS and destroys them,” Boehner said, referring to the Islamic State. “We have a very serious problem, and what we need is a strategy. And until there is a strategy, there is no reason to talk about any of the specifics, because I don’t know how they fit into the broader strategy.”
Boehner and other top House and Senate leaders are scheduled to meet Tuesday with Obama at the White House, where the president is expected to brief them about his strategy.
Boehner would not answer questions from reporters about whether he would support a move to send U.S. groups to the region, or whether Congress even needs to approve Obama’s military strategy.
When asked whether the military strategy needs to go “inside Syria,” which top military advisors have publicly say is required to eliminate Islamic State, Boehner said the terrorism threat goes beyond either Syria or Iraq, where the U.S. has already been conducting targeted military strikes against Islamic State.
Boehner cited a recent Rand Corp. study that said terrorist activity has doubled since Obama took office in 2009.
“I think that we need to be going after the terrorist threat wherever it is,” Boehner said. “And anyone that thinks this is just an Iraq-Syria issue is not paying much attention to what’s happening around the world.”
