TAMPA, Fla. — President Obama on Wednesday repeated his vow to destroy Islamist terrorists in Syria and Iraq, but he insisted that the United States would not go it alone and promised a military audience that he would not send them back into direct combat.
“Whether in Iraq or in Syria, these terrorists will learn the same thing that the leaders of Al Qaeda already know: We mean what we say,” Mr. Obama said at MacDill Air Force Base. “We've always known that the end of the war in Afghanistan didn't mean the end of threats or challenges to America.”
But Mr. Obama also hailed the official end of America’s combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of the year and said he was not starting another extensive war in the Middle East. He said the American troops currently in Iraq — they will soon number 1,600 — were not there to fight on the ground.
“The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission,” he said. “I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq.”
Mr. Obama was at the base to meet with his top military commanders at United States Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, and his national security team, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. A week ago the president told the nation that he was expanding the American military campaign against the extremists of the Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL.
Afterward Mr. Obama told servicemembers in a packed gym on the base that the United States had a unique responsibility and capability to lead the world in attacking the extremists, also known as ISIS.
But he vowed that “we are not going to do this alone” and said that more than 40 countries had offered to help the United States in assisting Iraqis and rebels in Syria to fight against the terrorists. He did not give any new information about which countries might provide ground troops in Iraq or Syria, but he said America’s military partners would include a “broad coalition of countries that have a stake in this fight.”
Aides described the president’s visit to the base as part of an effort to convince Americans of the need to confront the extremists in the Middle East. They said Mr. Obama was in a period of intensive focus on national security, which began with the speech announcing broader military action last Wednesday and will continue next week in New York when Mr. Obama attends the annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.
Mr. Obama’s comments at the base came just a day after Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the president’s top military adviser, generated headlines when he said that he might eventually recommend deploying ground troops in Syria if airstrikes were not sufficient to defeat the Islamic State extremists.
Aides later said that despite General Dempsey’s comments to a committee on Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama would not deploy combat forces on the ground in Iraq or Syria. They said Mr. Dempsey was merely describing contingency plans that the military is responsible for developing as operations in the region move forward.
The president’s appearance at the military base is also aimed at lawmakers in Washington, who will soon vote on whether to authorize the president’s request for funding to provide arms to the Free Syrian Army, a group of rebels that the United States government wants to build up as a counter to the Sunni extremists in that country.
Administration officials are strongly lobbying lawmakers to back the proposal, in part hoping that it will send a signal of American resolve. But the idea is meeting resistance from some Republicans, who say it is not aggressive enough, and from some Democrats, who say they are nervous about the danger of being dragged into an extended conflict by providing weapons to a group whose loyalties are uncertain.
Senior administration officials praised Republican leaders on Capitol Hill for working in a collaborative way with the White House to address those concerns. One official said he was pleasantly surprised by the bipartisan effort to reach an agreement on how to confront the extremists in Syria and Iraq, given the conflict and gridlock between the House and the president in recent years.
Mr. Obama also faces new evidence that the public is skeptical of the president’s handling of the terror threat and is wary of being dragged into another lengthy, costly military conflict in the Middle East.
In a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday, Americans said Republicans were more likely to do a better job of dealing with terrorism. Just 34 percent said they approved of the job Mr. Obama was doing on foreign policy, a lower approval rating on that issue than George W. Bush had in September 2006, as anger about the Iraq war swelled. Mr. Bush’s approval rating for foreign policy eventually sank to 25 percent.
Mr. Obama’s advisers dismiss such poll results, saying there is little reason to expect people to be positive about a president’s foreign policy when they are bombarded daily with gruesome news like the beheading of Americans held in Syria by Islamic extremists.
White House officials point to polls that suggest a majority of Americans support the president’s approach in the Middle East, including his decision to rule out sending ground troops into combat.
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