66% of Americans say Obama has no strategy for fighting Daesh

Approximately 66 percent of Americans think US President Barack Obama has no clear plan for defeating the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria, a new poll has shown.  

Only 23 percent of Americans think their president has a proper blueprint for dealing with the Takfiri group, according to the CBS News poll, released on Monday.

Meanwhile, support for deploying US ground troops against ISIL has grown in the wake of last week’s Paris attacks that reportedly killed scores of people and injured hundreds more, pollsters found. Half of Americans now favor that outcome, a rise of 4 points since August.

A majority of Americans — 63 percent — now support the use of ground troops against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, according to the poll. Only 20 percent think airstrikes alone can eliminate the Takfiri organization.

According to a Gallup poll released a day before the Paris attacks, more than half of Americans were opposed to sending ground troops to Syria or Iraq to fight Daesh terrorists. The poll showed that 53 percent of those surveyed opposed the idea, 43 percent supported the plan and 4 percent did not give any opinion.

On November 13, a number of bombers and gunmen launched coordinated attacks in and around the French capital, killing 130 people and injuring more than 350 others.

ISIL terrorists, who now control parts of Syria and Iraq, have claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in France.

However, some independent American analysts like former White House official Paul Craig Roberts say the United States and NATO likely orchestrated the attacks to close their borders to refugees and ramp up the war in Syria in order to counter Russia, which has been conducting air strikes there against Daesh terrorists since September 30.

“This was a false flag attack,” Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the US treasury, told Press TV on November 16. “It does not serve ISIL, but it does serve the Western political establishment.”

Monday’s poll also showed that Americans are nearly split over whether the United States should open its borders for Syrian refugees.

Fifty percent of Americans oppose taking refugees from Syria and other Middle East countries, while 47 percent are in favor of such an action, according to the poll.

The poll came just days after the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation to suspend Obama's program to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country.

Under the bill, no refugees from Syria or Iraq could enter the US until stricter screening measures are in place and it is clear that the refugees do not pose a threat to national security.

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