President Obama, in the past, has demonstrated a way with written words, and he’s done so again, this time in a joint op-ed with British Prime Minister David Cameron for the London Times published on the eve of this week’s NATO meeting in Wales.

Promising that “we will not be cowed” by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Islamist group that has beheaded two American journalists, the president and prime minister declared: “Those who want to adopt an isolationist approach misunderstand the nature of security in the 21st century. Developments in other parts of the world, particularly in Iraq and Syria, threaten our security at home.”