AP, Baltimore, 12 Sep 2014 — President Barack Obama cast the worldwide campaign he’s leading to destroy the Islamic State group on Friday as part of a broader effort to root out extremism within the Muslim world saying the U.S. “is on the right side of history.”
At a fundraiser for Senate Democrats in Baltimore, Obama said he was confident that Islamic State militants would eventually be defeated, thanks in part to a more inclusive Iraqi government and the broad coalition that Obama is seeking to assemble.
Yet he also said the crisis in the Middle East, while terrible, has a silver lining.
“It’s focused attention, I think, for the first time in a long time in the Muslim world about the need to completely distance from and ultimately stomp out this particular brand of Islamic extremism that really has no place in the 21st century,” Obama said.