The Obama administration thinks the U.S. is contributing enough to the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, and hosted a meeting of 59 ambassadors of the 65-nation coalition fighting the Sunni terrorist group at the State Department on Monday to prod them to do more.
“The conversation focused on how countries who are part of our coalition can ramp up their contributions to our efforts,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said as he described Vice President Joe Biden’s meeting with the ambassadors at Foggy Bottom.
Earnest added that while Obama was on a nine-day trek across Asia spanning Turkey to Malaysia, he spoke with world leaders in the wake of the terrorist group’s attacks on Paris and asked them to contribute even more, Earnest said.
Obama “certainly believes that there is more that our coalition partners can do to contribute to this effort,” Earnest said.
The U.S. is the biggest contributor to the fight, but Obama is open to doing more, Earnest said.
“I certainly wouldn’t rule out that there might be additional resources that are contributed by the United States,” Earnest said. “But when you consider the range of elements to our strategy, it’s clear that the United States is making significant contributions … whether that’s the United States being the largest donor of humanitarian assistance to the significant problem of Syrian refugees, or when you consider the significant investment of our military resources to apply pressure to ISIL leadership and to support fighting forces on the ground as they regain territory from ISIL,” he said, using the administration’s preferred acronym for the Islamic State or ISIS.
And behind other nation’s stepped-up efforts, such as France’s increased airstrikes on Islamic State targets, is U.S. muscle, Earnest said.
“The airstrikes that they carried out were based on targets that were identified by the United States, based on intelligence that had been conducted by the United States; they were supported by midair refueling that was conducted by the United States; and they were backed by [U.S.] contingency operations,” he explained.
Biden’s meeting with the ambassadors was the fifth such meeting held in Washington, the State Department said.
The “foreign minister of Bahrain and senior diplomats from France, Iraq, Italy, Lebanon and Turkey discussed their strong commitment to the coalition and briefed the [group] on coalition efforts, including ongoing support for stabilization operations in Iraq, enhancing humanitarian aid and increasing information sharing to counter foreign fighter flows and cut off ISIL revenues,” the department said.
