WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States government should consider the threat from terrorist groups as the main foreign policy priority, President Barack Obama said in his last State of the Union address.
“Our foreign policy must be focused on the threat from ISIL [Daesh] and al-Qaeda, but it can’t stop there,” Obama stated on Tuesday evening.
“If this Congress is serious about winning this war, and wants to send a message to our troops and the world, you should finally authorize the use of military force against ISIL,” Obama stated on Tuesday.
Barack Obama warned that some countries in the Middle East, Central America, and Asia may turn into safe havens for terrorist groups because of the instability in these regions.
“For even without ISIL, instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world — in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia," Obama said on Tuesday. "Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks; others will fall victim to ethnic conflict, or famine, feeding the next wave of refugees."
Obama also said that Daesh fighters do not threaten US national security.
"Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence," Obama said on Tuesday. "That’s the story ISIL wants to tell, that’s the kind of propaganda they use to recruit."
“We just need to call them [Daesh] what they are — killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed,” Obama said on Tuesday.
