POLITICO: …“This larger battle for hearts and minds is going to be a generational struggle,” Obama said.
Even so, the president singled out what he called solid progress and the “strategic weaknesses” of ISIL that the U.S. and its allies would continue to exploit — its isolation from international support, its lack of air power and its own ideological extremism.
Overall, Obama said, the U.S. strategy for ISIL is working: A global coalition is supporting local troops on the ground, so Americans don’t have to fight. More than 5,000 airstrikes have wrought a devastating toll on the terror group. Thousands of terrorists have been killed, and much of their weapons and equipment have been destroyed. ISIL has lost about 25 percent of the territory it controlled at its peak last year in Iraq. Obama vowed that the military and its allies would continue to pummel the oil and gas infrastructure that ISIL uses to finance itself, as well as the terror group’s leaders… (more)
