In the aftermath of the Nice, France attack on Thursday, Hillary Clinton said that in the fight against ISIS, bombing their capital in Raqqa, Syria is “not the most effective way” to defeat them.
On Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” host Bill O’Reilly said, “I think two things have to happen. Number one, President Obama has to call a summit meeting of all the western countries, and ISIS has to be the focal point, and we all have to join together. And number two, we have to make a statement. And the statement would be we know they’re in Raqqah. We know this is their headquarters, and that headquarters is 35 miles away from the Turkish border, a NATO alley. And we’re going to come in, and that’s not going to be their headquarters anymore. That’s what I would do.”
Responding to O’Reilly’s idea of destroying ISIS’s capital, Clinton said, “Well, look, that you know, that is, in my view, not the most effective way.”
“What is happening now is we are taking territory back in Iraq. We are squeezing them with consistent air attacks,” Clinton said. “We have killed a number of their leaders. Assuming we are successful and American military leadership is in the hunt on this in Mosul, we are pushing the Turks, they have moved far more than they had and, in fact, probably the attack at the Istanbul airport was because the Turks are really cracking down.”
“We are putting together a much more effective coalition. I would intensify those efforts. I have no problem with having a summit. I would include, however, not only NATO allies. We’ve got great allies in the region who are holding the lines for us, places like Jordan, like Israel. Others who are really on the front lines themselves.”
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Referring to her time as secretary of state, Clinton said, “I started the first ever international group to deal with global terrorism and to bring everybody to the table. Places that we know money and fighters come out of, and to get them to make more commitments to deal with what they, themselves, have not stopped within their borders. And I think we’ve got to elevate this, make it a very high priority, and I would.”