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François Hollande and Obama Meet to Plan ISIS Fight Meeting With François Hollande, Obama Urges Europe to Escalate ISIS Fight
(about 9 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama welcomed President François Hollande of France to the White House on Tuesday to map out the future of the international campaign against the Islamic State as pressure rose for a more aggressive approach. WASHINGTON — President Obama offered his visiting French counterpart emotional words of solidarity on Tuesday but made it clear that it was up to Europe to escalate its efforts to combat the terrorist group that killed 130 people in Paris this month.
Just over 10 days after terrorist attacks in Paris killed 130 people, Mr. Hollande arrived in Washington seeking to stitch together a tighter alliance against the Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility. But the prospect for a broader consensus was made more challenging by a complex mosaic of competing interests. In their first meeting since a cascade of shootings and suicide bombings terrorized the French capital on Nov. 13, Mr. Obama and President François Hollande resolved to increase cooperation in the battle against the Islamic State, the group that claimed responsibility for the attacks.
“We’re here today to declare that the United States and France stand united in total solidarity,” Mr. Obama said, with Mr. Hollande at his side in the East Room. He called the attacks on Paris an attack on all open societies by a ruthless enemy. “It cannot be tolerated,” he said. “It must be destroyed. And we must do it together.” “We are here today to declare that the United States and France stand united in total solidarity to deliver justice to these terrorists and those who sent them and to defend our nations,” Mr. Obama said. The Islamic State, he added, is a threat to all nations. “It cannot be tolerated. It must be destroyed. And we must do it together.”
Mr. Obama spoke of the shared values of the American and French people, said the events in Paris had struck here personally, as well. Next to his bed in the White House, he said, is a photograph of him and Michelle Obama kissing in Luxembourg Gardens. “When tragedy struck that evening, our hearts broke too,” he said. Publicly, though, Mr. Obama outlined no concrete new actions that the United States would take, and he suggested that the attacks might finally prompt Europe to approach the threat more seriously. “We also think, as François said, that there may be new openness on the part of other coalition members to help resource and provide additional assistance, both to the coalition as a whole and to the local forces on the ground,” Mr. Obama said.
In a line reminiscent of one used by the French to express solidarity with the United States after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Obama said in French: “Nous sommes tous Français.” (“We are all French.”) Speaking at a joint news conference with Mr. Hollande, Mr. Obama cited in particular Europe’s resistance to sharing information on airline passengers. “I have been talking to our European partners for quite some time now about the need for better intelligence sharing, passenger name records, working to ensure that when people enter into Europe, particularly now, that the information across various borders is shared on a timely basis,” he said.
Mr. Hollande expressed appreciation for the support, noting that Mr. Obama was one of the first world leaders to call him after the attacks and calling the French and the Americans “two peoples together, merged as one, sharing the same emotion and the same willingness to fight for freedom.” Mr. Hollande, who spent just a few hours in Washington as he was making his way across the globe to meet with counterparts, said France now had a “relentless determination to fight terrorism everywhere and anywhere” and would “scale up our strikes” against the Islamic State in Syria and in Iraq. “There is a new mind-set now,” Mr. Hollande said.
Mr. Hollande hoped to bring together the United States and Russia against a mutual enemy, but the two former Cold War rivals remained divided by fundamental differences over the fate of Syria. While Russia’s new air campaign in Syria ostensibly targets the Islamic State, it seems aimed mainly at bolstering the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whom Mr. Obama has said should step down. In putting the onus on the French and other Europeans, the White House emphasized the longstanding sense among American officials that their allies on the other side of the ocean did not share their view of the need for action. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Tuesday that the Paris attacks would serve as “an extremely important wake-up call,” much like the hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001.
After his stop in Washington, Mr. Hollande planned to head to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to see if the divide can be bridged, but the White House and Kremlin showed no signs of that. “I thought what Hollande said was telling,” Mr. Biden told a handful of reporters after Mr. Obama’s meeting with the French president. “He said ‘I’m going to be’ — essentially — ‘going back to Europe and getting the Europeans to step up and do more.’ It’s not that we haven’t been doing a lot. We’ve been doing it all, basically.”
Mr. Putin visited Iran on Monday to consult with leaders in Tehran who share his support for Mr. Assad, a trip that seemed intended almost as a parallel effort to shore up opposition to Western demands for his departure. And the situation grew more volatile on Tuesday after Turkey, a NATO ally, shot down a Russian jet involved in the Syria operation; Ankara said the jet was flying in Turkish airspace, which Moscow denied. The comments reflected the resentment in the White House at pressure to escalate the battle with the Islamic State, given that the United States has conducted two-thirds of the airstrikes against the group in Iraq and 95 percent of the strikes in Syria. Until the Paris attacks, France had participated in strikes in Iraq but only a handful of times in Syria, where the Islamic State has its de facto capital.
“No one from the outside can and should enforce models of government on the Syrian people and determine who should be in charge,” Mr. Putin was reported saying while in Tehran, where he met with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. “Only the Syrian people should decide that.” Mr. Obama has been criticized by Republicans and some Democrats for not further ramping up the war on the Islamic State, and new polls show that the public has little confidence in his handling of the threat. The president has resisted a more extensive involvement in Iraq and Syria, arguing that it would only entangle the United States in another quagmire like those he inherited.
But Mr. Obama made clear he has not backed down on this fundamental point. “We agree that Russia could play a more constructive role if it were to shift the focus of its strikes to defeating ISIL,” the president said Tuesday, using an acronym for the Islamic State and emphasizing the words “could” and “if.” But it was unclear whether Mr. Obama’s words of support on Tuesday would satisfy France. “I hope that translates into action and it’s not just language,” said Philippe Le Corre, a former senior adviser to the French Defense Ministry who is now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “You can’t leave the French alone. The United States cannot avoid an increased presence of some kind.”
The Paris attacks, coming shortly after the downing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt, apparently by an Islamic State bomb, have upended the lineup in the Middle East. Both France and Russia in recent days have bombed Islamic State strongholds in Syria. Until now, France had confined its efforts against the Islamic State mainly to Iraq, where it had the invitation of the government, and Russia had concentrated on bombing other opponents of Mr. Assad’s government, some backed by the United States. Mr. Hollande came to Washington after meeting with his British counterpart and before similar sessions with the leaders of Germany, Russia and Italy. His efforts to stitch together a tighter alliance, however, will be tested most seriously on Thursday when he reaches Moscow to talk with President Vladimir V. Putin, who has intervened in Syria to bolster the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
But if Mr. Hollande has vowed a merciless response for the Paris attacks, declaring that “we are at war,” Mr. Obama has been on the defensive, insisting that his strategy against the Islamic State is working and dismissing calls for escalation. Even as he argues that a combination of airstrikes and assistance to local forces on the ground will eventually chip away at the Islamic State, Republicans and even some Democrats have pressed for a recalibration. Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Hollande have insisted that Mr. Assad step down as part of any political settlement of the four-year-old civil war that has fueled the rise of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. They have also called on the Russians to stop bombing opposition forces backed by the West and focus their firepower on the Islamic State.
The White House said on Monday that the United States, which has conducted two-thirds of the strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and 95 percent in Syria, is already doing its share and it was Europe that needed to step up. “We certainly believe that there is more that France and their European partners can do in terms of sharing information among themselves and with the United States,” Mr. Earnest said. “We agree that Russia could play a more constructive role if it were to shift the focus of its strikes to defeating ISIL,” Mr. Obama said, emphasizing the words “could” and “if.” A resolution of the crisis requires “a political transition away from Assad,” Mr. Obama added.
He pointed out that France was able to conduct its airstrikes in Syria after the Paris attacks only with the help of the United States, which not only handed over intelligence about targets but also provided midair refueling and search-and-rescue backup in case something went wrong. Mr. Obama and Mr. Hollande will talk about how to expand on that. The challenge in drawing Russia into such a position became even more complicated on Tuesday after Turkey, a NATO member, shot down a Russian warplane that it said had crossed into its airspace. Mr. Obama defended Turkey’s right to protect its territory but urged both sides to avoid escalating the confrontation.
“I would anticipate they will also discuss how France can continue to ramp up their contribution to our counter-ISIL effort,” Mr. Earnest said, using an acronym for the Islamic State, “including in the category of military contributions that France is prepared to make to this effort.” Mr. Biden said separately that the administration had some optimism that Mr. Putin may yet come around. “I think Putin is coming to the realization that Assad should transition out,” Mr. Biden said. At the same time, he said, Saudi Arabia, which has opposed Mr. Assad, now recognizes that his departure may not be immediate. “So I think everybody is moving off of their absolute positions.”
Mr. Obama expressed an emotional response to the Paris attacks, speaking at length of the shared values of the American and French people. Next to his bed in the White House, he said, is a photograph of him and his wife kissing in Luxembourg Gardens. “When tragedy struck that evening, our hearts broke too,” he said.
In a line reminiscent of one used by the French to express solidarity with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Obama said in French: “Nous sommes tous Français.” (“We are all French.”)