President Obama this week was struggling to keep the world focused on a global climate deal, even as the Islamic State and Syria’s civil war continued to divert his attention and that of other world leaders.
Major heads of state gathered in Paris this week to talk about a deal to reduce carbon emissions, but leaders couldn’t help but address terrorism, especially after Islamic State attacks killed 130 people in the same city less than three weeks earlier.
Obama met Monday for one-on-one meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and was compelled to discuss the terrorist group and the international effort to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad.
His administration also had to announce new security measures for international visitors on Monday while it would have preferred to keep the focus on initiatives aimed at combating climate change, such as the public-private partnership called Mission Innovation that strives to increase research and development for clean-energy technology.
Obama, French President Francois Hollande and others have tried to keep the focus on the objective of reaching a global climate agreement by tying it to the international effort to stop the Islamic State. At the White House last week, Obama and Hollande both said that forging ahead with the United Nations climate talks in the very city where the attacks took place would send the Sunni terrorist group a strong rebuke.
Speaking to reporters in Paris on Monday, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, rebuffed critics who said there is no correlation.
The Islamic State wants “to kill as many people as they can,” Rhodes said. Such terrorist groups also “want to disrupt us from living our lives and doing our business.” If leaders from more than 190 countries had called off the two-week summit “because of something that terrorists did, clearly, that would be demonstrating that ISIL can disrupt the activities of the entire world,” which would “send a terrible message,” Rhodes said, using the administration’s name for the Islamic State.
But those close links make it hard to keep people focused on climate change. Obama began his three-day trip the City of Light by visiting the concert hall where most of the victims perished. He also spent time talking to key world leaders, such as Putin, about the Syrian conflict.
“I think it’s very important that we demonstrate that we’re able to do more than one thing at once,” Rhodes said of these simultaneous events. “We’re able to take the fight to ISIL; we’re able to confront the threat of climate change; we’re able to do the peoples’ business at home as well.”
“And just as there will be discussions here about continuing to intensify the counter-ISIL campaign, I think the world leaders are demonstrating, and you hear each of them say, that they wanted to be here in part to show solidarity with the people of Paris,” he said.
In their conversation on the summit’s sidelines, Obama offered condolences for the Russian troops who died when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet last week over the Syrian-Turkish border and stressed that the incident should not lead to further escalation of hostilities between Moscow and Ankara.
The two presidents also committed to finding a diplomatic solution in Syria, even though they fundamentally disagree on Assad’s fate. Obama urged Putin to focus Russian military might in the region against the Islamic State rather than bombing groups supported by the U.S.-led, 65-nation anti-ISIS coalition who oppose Assad.
In a joint appearance with Xi during the climate talks, the Chinese leader actually broached the subject of the Islamic State first.
“Terrorism is on the rise … there is more instability and uncertainty in the international situation,” Xi said. “Against this backdrop, it’s very important for China and the United States to be firmly committed to the right direction of building a new model of major-country relations and follow the principle of non-confrontation and non-conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation and … working together to combat all forms of terrorism,” he said.
Obama took the opportunity to “express our condolences over the [recent] killing of a Chinese hostage by ISIL. I think it indicates the degree to which this is a threat to all of our countries.
“And I look forward to discussing how China can play a greater role in addressing this crisis, and especially supporting a political transition in Syria, and assisting on humanitarian needs because what’s clear is that China is invested in helping to resolve global problems,” he said.
Rhodes tamped down the idea that Syria and the Paris attacks are reshaping Obama’s remaining foreign policy agenda away from the issues he wants to concentrate on, such as his “pivot” to Asia, the Pacific Rim trade treaty and a global agreement to curb greenhouse gases.
“[C]ounter-terrorism has been a focus throughout his presidency,” Rhodes said. Obama will spend his last days in office doing everything he can to resolve the conflict in Syria “but also have a relentless pressure that aims to degrade ISIL, deny it safe haven, and ultimately, again, put ISIL on the path toward destruction, as we’ve been doing against al Qaeda.”
That hasn’t stopped him from pursuing other priorities, Rhodes said.
“So we continue to pursue global economic growth through the G-20; we have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons to the Middle East through the Iran deal; we’ve put in place a trade agreement with 40 percent of the global economy through the TPP that will be hugely beneficial to our economy, and to our strategic position in Asia-Pacific,” he said.
“And we’re here … pursuing an ambitious climate agreement that can bring the world together to deal with this urgent challenge,” Rhodes said.
But “ISIL is front and center; terrorism is always front and center,” he said.
