Defeating Daesh requires a new leader in Syria, insists Obama

Barack Obama insisted on Tuesday that defeating Daesh will only be possible after Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad steps down. The US president made his comments during a speech at the UN Leaders’ Summit on Countering Daesh and Violent Extremism.

“In Syria, defeating Daesh requires a new leader,” he said. “It is not going to be enough to defeat Daesh on the battlefield. We have to prevent it from… recruiting… others to violence.”

Obama noted that Daesh has lost a third of the territory previously under its control in Iraq and most of the border areas with Turkey in Syria. He stressed that military action alone will not succeed and that the coalition should address the conditions that contributed to the increase in Islamic extremism.

“The series of fights against terrorist groups will be long and complex,” the American leader explained, “and as I said before, we are ready to work with all countries, including Russia and Iran, to find a political mechanism in which it is possible to begin a transition process.”

President Obama pointed out that he believes that the extremist group will eventually lose, “like other tyrants throughout history, because it has nothing to offer but suffering and death.”