Hillary Clinton said during Saturday night's Democratic Party debate that the United States and its allies have a strategy and commitment to combat the Islamic State.
Yet earlier in the evening, Clinton said she had a plan to not just "contain" ISIS, which appeared to be a veiled shot at President Obama's claim to have the group contained in the days before it killed 130 people in Paris, France.
"Look at these complex problems. I wish it could be either or, I wish we could say yes, let’s go destroy ISIS and let’s let Assad continue to destroy Syria which creates more terrorist, more extremists by the minute. No. We now finally are where we need to be. We have a strategy and a commitment to go after ISIS, which is a danger to us as well as the region and we finally have a UN Security Council resolution bringing the world together to go after a political transition in Syria," Clinton said.
At a November speech at the Council for Foreign Relations, Clinton called for more allied planes and more airstrikes. Clinton also urged Congress to authorize the use of military force against ISIS. Rather than having a large-scale U.S. presence on the ground, Clinton said that she would want more U.S. Special Operation forces to train the Sunnis and Kurds in opposing ISIS. Previous efforts to train Syrian rebels to combat the terrorist organization failed miserably.
On December 15, 2015 at a campaign speech in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Clinton laid out her plan to combat ISIS that sounded more like a set of goals more than an actual strategic plan.
"One, defeat ISIS in the Middle East by smashing its stronghold, hitting its fighters, leaders and infrastructure and intensifying support for local forces who can pursue them on the ground," Clinton said. "Second, defeat them around the world by dismantling the global network of terror that supplies radical jihadists with money, arms, propaganda and fighters.
"Third, defeat them here at home by foiling plots, disrupting radicalization and hardening our defenses. Now these three lines of effort reinforce one another, so we need to pursue them all at once using every pillar of American power."