Hillary Clinton calls for ‘new phase’ in war on ISIS

Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton called Thursday for a sharp escalation of the war against the so-called Islamic State on military, diplomatic and ideological fronts, embracing some ideas championed by Republicans and rejected by President Obama.

“It’s time to begin a new phase and intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be caliphate,” the former secretary of state said in a major foreign policy speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “This is a worldwide fight, and America must lead it.”

While heavy on policy, Clinton’s remarks served multiple political purposes. She contrasted herself with the current president, whose approach is broadly unpopular with the U.S. public. She rebutted Republicans who have criticized her for refusing to call the enemy “radical Islamic terrorism” and sharply rejected the GOP drive to turn Syrian refugees away from the U.S. border in the aftermath of the massacres in Paris. The speech also helped Clinton assert mastery of foreign policy issues after a wobbly debate performance and seize the initiative against her chief rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., hours before he addressed foreign policy in a speech of his own.

Like Obama, Clinton rejected the notion, advanced by some Republicans, that crushing ISIS, as the terrorist army is also known, would require a large U.S. troop presence on the ground in Iraq and Syria.

“That is just not the smart move to make here,” she said. “If we have learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s that local people and nations have to secure their own communities. We can help them, and we should, but we cannot substitute for them.”

But Clinton said that Obama had not sent enough elite U.S. commandos into Syria, where they have been working with rebel forces caught between ISIS and government forces loyal to strongman Bashar Assad.

“We should be sending more,” she said.

At the same time, Clinton said an attack on U.S. soil might increase pressure to send conventional U.S. troops into Syria but that “it would be a mistake” to do so.

And American troops already in Iraq and Syria need more flexible rules of engagement that could bring them closer to the frontlines, she argued. “We may have to give our own troops advising and training the Iraqis greater freedom of movement and flexibility, including embedding in local units and helping target airstrikes.”

Like Obama, Clinton called for escalating airstrikes on ISIS targets “with more allied planes, more strikes and a broader target set.” While she did not detail exactly how she would change the choice of targets, a campaign aide said she would take

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