ISIL does not threaten our national existence: Obama’s State of the Union Address

The US President also defended his approach against ISIL, listing the tactics that have succeeded in blunting the groups advance

US president Barack Obama greets guests after giving his State of the Union address on January 12, 2016. J Scott Applewhite / AP Photo

NEW YORK // US president Barack Obama defended his cautious foreign policy in the Middle East and approach to fighting ISIL during his final State of the Union Address, assuring Americans that the extremists “do not threaten our national existence”.

He also sought to allay fears that the country’s influence is faltering as he approached the end of his eight years in office.

Responding to his critics – who he says have inflated the dimensions of the threat posed by the extremist group – he warned that “as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is the World War Three just play into their hands”.

The two-term president defended his approach against ISIL in Tuesday’s address, listing the tactics that have succeeded in blunting the group’s advance. While he admitted they would remain a counter-terrorism challenge, “they do not threaten our national existence”, he said. “That’s the story ISIL wants to tell; that’s the kind of propaganda they use to recruit.”

Mr Obama acknowledged that perceptions of insecurity and anxiety have increased in the United States, but he also used the major speech to frame his tenure as one that has left the country economically healthier and stronger on the world stage.

“I told you earlier all the talk of America’s economic decline is political hot air. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker,” Mr Obama said, adding that “our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected ... and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead – they call us”.

Mr Obama drew a portrait of a world in which US interests are not primarily challenged by aspiring global powers but by failing states where extremist groups have filled the political vacuum.

“The international system we built after the World War Two is now struggling to keep pace with this new reality,” he said.

He also took aim at the Republican presidential frontrunners who have exploited the fears and prejudices of their right-wing, white base by resorting to xenophobic attacks on Muslims during their campaigns. The unprecedented Islamophobia by major political figures has contributed to a significant spike in hate crimes against Muslims and others who appear to be Muslim.

Rhetoric by Republicans who have insisted on calling ISIL “Islamic” in nature is counterproductive in the fight against ISIL, Mr Obama said, and the US should not “push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world’s largest religions. We just need to call them what they are – killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed”.

He called on Americans to reject the politics of fear of Muslims that has crept towards respectability in US politics during this election cycle.

“When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalised, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer,” Mr Obama said.

“That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a ­country.”

The Middle East “is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation, rooted in conflicts that date back millennia,” Mr Obama said, implicitly referring to the idea that sectarian hatred fueled the turmoil – a characterisation that others in his administration have directly refuted.