President Obama spent very little time on foreign policy and foreign affairs during Tuesday night's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.
But he did call on lawmakers to pass a resolution authorizing the use of force against self-proclaimed Islamic State militants.
"Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group," Obama said during the address. "We're also supporting a moderate opposition in Syria that can help us in this effort, and assisting people everywhere who stand up to the bankrupt ideology of violent extremism."
Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, says the Middle East section of the speech was really about counterterrorism, and the days of promoting democracy in the region are over.
"He has reduced America's interests, and he spent as much time talking about what he was going to do [as he did] talking about what he shouldn't do...which is to get Americans involved in fighting," Landis says. "He wants to use force, but he wants to have a coalition, and he says it's counterterrorism, and he's not going to occupy countries."
Landis also says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming trip to Washington is being used as a bargaining chip by Congress, who feels Obama is too weak on Iran.
"They say, 'No, we want more sanctions.' The president said, 'Do not sanction. I'll veto sanctions, because you'll screw it up.' And here is loggerheads," Landis says. "They don't want, and they don't believe that we can have a bargain with Iran, that we have to nail them with more and more sanctions, and that Iran is, in many ways, that we need regime change in Iran, not cottoning up to a regime, or making a deal with a regime."
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