President Obama will meet Tuesday with Capitol Hill
leaders to discuss pressing foreign-policy issues including how to combat
Islamic State terrorists, as Congress comes back from summer break and the
president returns from a NATO summit.
The Oval office meeting is scheduled to include Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky.; House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio; and House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif.
They are expected to discuss a range of world issues
including whether to launch air strikes on Syria and Russia’s foray into
eastern Ukraine.
The meeting between Obama and Hill leaders will also
be their first since mid-June, when they met to discuss the terror group’s
deadly march into northern Iraq, as reported first by The Washington Post.
One likely discussion will be whether Congress will
authorize more strikes, after Obama last month authorized limited ones as part
of a humanitarian effort to save Iraqi minorities trapped on a remote
mountainside.
The White House has argued it didn’t need
congressional approval for the strikes also because they were requested by the
Iraqi government and to protect American personnel.
Obama retuned Friday from the NATO summit in Wales
with leaders from numerous ally countries pledging their support to confront
Islamic State militants in the Middle East.
“Now that the president has conducted initial
consultations with our allies, and stated his objective to degrade and destroy
(Islamic State,) it’s time to present a strategy to Congress,” McConnell said.
“I hope he will begin to do that at Tuesday’s meeting. … And where the
president believes he lacks authority to execute such a strategy, he needs to
explain to the Congress how additional authority for the use of force will
protect America.”
McConnell also said he thinks Obama will get
“significant” congressional support if he presents a solid, strategic plan but
argued his plan to equip the militaries of allied nations as the United States
shrinks its global military presence “untenable.”
Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, a member on
the Senate Armed Services Committee, said last week that he plan to propose
legislation upon Congress’ return to Washington, to authorize strikes on
Islamic Nation militants.
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