Obama Considers Bigger Role in Syria, But Endgame Unclear
"We're going to do what is necessary to take the fight to this terrorist group," Obama said in September 2014.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty ImagesOn Wednesday, President Barack Obama is to assemble his top national security officials at the CIA to discuss options to increase pressure on the Islamic State in Syria. With each additional step, he risks drawing the U.S. further into the conflict he has spent five years trying to avoid.
The meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee brings together some of the president’s top cabinet members, most of whom have been pressing Obama to allow them to do more to fight the Islamic State in Syria. According to some reports, Secretary of State John Kerry had pestered the president so many times to ramp up the military mission that the president stipulated that only the secretary of defense could bring him military proposals.