NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton laid out a broad agenda Thursday for confronting the Islamic State terrorist network — and sent a larger signal that she intends to be a more aggressive commander in chief than President Obama, under whom she served as secretary of state.
The front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination also portrayed the United States as the leader of a global fight to exterminate the Islamic State and other terrorist threats. She doubled down on her call for a no-fly zone to protect Syrian civilians.
Clinton’s prescriptions — which are hawkish and more specific than either her Democratic or Republican rivals have set out — could raise discomfort in liberal circles and among Americans made wary by the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Her comments suggested that she is looking past her primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), and positioning herself for a general-election battle against whomever the Republican Party puts forward.
She also indicated that hers will be a different brand of leadership than that of Obama, who has been roundly criticized for declaring shortly before last week’s attacks in Paris that the Islamic State had been “contained.”
Clinton, in contrast, said the threat is an urgent one.
As secretary of state, she lost a policy struggle within the Obama administration about whether to intervene by arming and training Syrian rebels in 2011 and 2012, before the group also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL emerged as a potent threat.
“ISIS is demonstrating new ambition, reach and capabilities,” she said in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations. “Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS.”
“Time is of the essence,” Clinton added.
Recent history teaches that sending a large U.S. ground force “is just not the smart move,” she said, although she described a wider and deeper U.S. military commitment than Obama has yet to mount.
Her repeated calls for the United States to take the global lead marked a change in emphasis.
As recently as Saturday, during a Democratic presidential candidate debate in Des Moines, Clinton had said: “It cannot be an American fight. And I think what the president has consistently said — which I agree with — is that we will support those who take the fight to ISIS. . . . This cannot be an American fight, although American leadership is essential.”
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