AP Photo Republicans blast Obama's stay-the-course approach to ISIL The 2016 GOP contenders race to condemn Obama's reluctance for a rethink after Friday's Paris attacks.

Republicans on Monday wasted no time in blasting President Barack Obama for rejecting calls to dramatically change course against Islamic State in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in Paris, and worked to undermine administration plans to still accept thousands of Syrian refugees.

The attacks that claimed the lives of more than 130 people, including a California college student, have stoked the ire of Republicans who believe Obama has shown a weak hand in countering terrorism abroad and protecting Americans from violent extremism. The presidential race has amplified the response, with candidates racing to condemn Obama's remarks before the G-20 conference in Turkey on Monday in which he declared, "We have the right strategy and we’re gonna see it through."


Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush immediately bashed Obama's policies, saying the president "doesn't understand we are at war."

President Obama doesn’t understand we are at war. Defeating ISIS requires America leading and America winning. https://t.co/OBawzKIRaF — Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 16, 2015

Obama Admin has no strategy to defeat ISIS but is obsessed with closing Gitmo. This is Alice in Wonderland logic. https://t.co/vg8RHenpfc — Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 16, 2015

His communications director, Tim Miller, compared France’s President Francois Hollande’s announcement that France was “at war” with Obama’s remarks:

The contrast between Hollande's vow to wage a "pitiless" war to defeat terror and Obama's dispassionate resignation pretty stark. — Tim Miller (@Timodc) November 16, 2015

Ohio Gov. John Kasich slammed what he called Obama's "failing policies," signing the tweets with "John" to illustrate they were coming from him directly and now his staff:

It’s shocking the President doesn’t realize his policies on terror & ISIS are failing. We need to act now. -John https://t.co/m87eeDtmiA — John Kasich (@JohnKasich) November 16, 2015

We must join NATO & regional allies on the ground to wipe out ISIS. We can’t wait any longer. -John https://t.co/b3sh00oVyA — John Kasich (@JohnKasich) November 16, 2015

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called the Obama administration’s strategy “insanity:"

President Obama staying the course on our ISIS “strategy" is the definition of insanity. — Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) November 16, 2015

South Carolina Gov. Lindsey Graham, a consistent critic of Obama’s terrorism policies, used an op-ed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to bolster his point: "Doing the minimum won’t make us safe."

From @MittRomney's op-ed: "After Paris, it’s clear: Doing the minimum won’t make us safe." I couldn't agree more. https://t.co/mBaLN3kYdW — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 16, 2015

He also offered up his "Graham plan" as a solution:

Intelligence committee chairmen agree @POTUS has no strategy against ISIL. I believe #GrahamPlan is our solution. https://t.co/NPL8AwEpEM — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 16, 2015

.@POTUS is walking faster in the wrong direction when it comes to dealing with ISIL. https://t.co/L8ckZoVOAR — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 16, 2015

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called Obama a "Cub Scout" and like Bush he contrasted the president's strategy with his plan to close Guantanamo:

We have a Cub Scout for Commander in Chief instead of someone who is capable of defending America. — Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 16, 2015

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO fired away at the president and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who she often criticizes on the trail, as speaking in "terms of ambivalence and shades of gray."

"President Obama--and Secretary Clinton for that matter--are always speaking in terms of ambivalence and shades of gray, offering false choices and raising the shadow of doubt about our will to lead," she wrote on Facebook. "The next President of the United States must reestablish our leadership—she must speak with clarity, accept that some things are black and white and act with courage," she continued.

The reverberations aren't just being felt on the campaign trail. As of Monday afternoon, a number of GOP governors, including multiple candidates, acted to shut their borders to Syrian refugees, after it was revealed that international investigators are looking at the possibility that one of the Paris attackers came to Europe by posing as one.

But some of the loudest voices were from the 2016 candidates, especially when it comes to Obama's reluctance to go back on his pledge to welcome the refugees. Donald Trump has long called allowing Syrian refugees to enter the U.S. "a Trojan horse" and he re-upped his warning on Monday, while others like Rick Santorum called for them to be turned away because of the terrorism threat.

As far as the Syrian refugees already in the country, Ben Carson urged vigilance.

“Well I would watch them very carefully, that’s for sure," he told reporters in Henderson, Nevada. "I would certainly stop any further ingress. Congress, I think, should defund all of the programs that allow these people to brought here.”

Pressed further on how those people would be monitored, he invoked the case of the Tsarnaev brothers, the brothers who set off two pressure-cooker bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon, "except you've got to be able to pull the trigger."

Others called for a stronger hand against Islamic State itself, including Graham, who said Obama must "rally the world."

“I would encourage the president really to rally the world to marry up with the French, the Arabs," the South Carolina senator and Republican presidential candidate said in a joint interview on MSNBC from Atlanta with Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain. "They have large armies. Let’s use their armies in a strong way, integrate their forces in a regional army, get the French involved, any NATO nation that would like to help and come up with a ground component to supplement the air campaign going on the ground and destroy the caliphate at its headquarters, at its capital in Raqqa."

“They’re not the JV campaign, but they’re certainly not 10 feet tall," Graham said. "The worst possible solution is half measures."

Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, tweeted that Obama was "dissembling" about what his critics were urging him to do:

Tired of Obama's dissembling. No one calling for massive troop intervention. Instead calling for winning strategy to replace current failure — Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 16, 2015

In the press conference, Obama pushed back hard, saying that if “folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan.”

He said that most of the time, the U.S. is already doing what the critics recommend, while dismissing their calls for a more aggressive posture as "political games."

“I go to Walter Reed and I see a 25-year-old kid who’s paralyzed or has lost his limbs and some of those are people I’ve ordered into battle. And so I can’t afford to play some of the other political games that others may,” he said, referring to Republican calls to send in additional ground forces Iraq and perhaps Syria.

Obama seemed to make an oblique reference to claims by Carson that he had access to better intelligence than Obama does, a comment that White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest last week said left him “speechless.”

“If they think that somehow their advisers are better than the chairman of my joint chiefs of staff and the folks who are actually on the ground, I want to meet them,” he said. “But what I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership of America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work.”