President Obama in a primetime speech Wednesday night will lay out “the next offensive phase” in the U.S. conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the White House said Tuesday.
But the speech will not provide details about the specific military tactics the U.S. plans to use, how much it will cost or how long it will last.
The president’s speech at 9 p.m., a high-volume viewing time, means that the president believes that fighting Islamic State is a “high national security priority,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday.
“They should watch because the president of the United States and the commander in chief will be communicating directly with the American public,” Earnest said. “[Obama] will lay out what he clearly sees as American interests, what he has put together to confront those risks, to mitigate those risks … and ultimately to defeat [Islamic State].”
Earnest said Obama will talk about the importance of Iraq forming an inclusive government, the efforts his administration is taking to build international and regional coalitions to help confront ISIS and the threat Westerners who are fighting for Islamic State pose to the U.S. homeland.
“The president has made clear this is not a short-term proposition,” he added.
Pressed on whether Obama will announce airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria, Earnest said only that he would leave any announcement about major decision along those lines to the president.
“If he has an announcement to make about airstrikes in Syria, he will make it. I won’t make it from here,” he said.
Obama will deliver the speech after a major shift in public opinion about military action in the Middle East. A new ABC News-Washington Post released Tuesday found overwhelming support for U.S.-led airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria, as long as the military action did not involve sending boots on the ground.
The address also comes when Obama’s approval ratings, including how Americans view his handling of foreign policy, are at records lows and exactly one year after he delivered a major speech on Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons and why the U.S. should care about it.
Obama had deferred a decision to launch airstrikes against Assad to Congress, which overwhelmingly voted down any military action in Syria last year.
