White House edges closer to strikes on Syria as pressure grows on Obama to act on ISIS

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes warned ISIS that 'if you come after Americans, we’re going to come after you wherever you are'

House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers told MailOnline that Obama should warn ISIS that it will feel 'the full capabilities of American might'

A retired Army lieutenant colonel charged that 'this president could care less about all the threats we face'

Earlier, a Pentagon spokesman said DoD is working on' getting permission for 'train and equip' rebels to help overthrow Bashar al-Assad

But a Defense spokesman also said military leaders have not ruled out attacking ISIS in Syria – a move that would require Assad's permission

Military options: Barack Obama gives his statement on the murder of James Foley from Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday

In the aftermath of James Foley's beheading, President Barack Obama is weighing up how to increase his military campaign against ISIS as the US edges closer to strikes in Syria.



Having already conducted limited air-strikes against ISIS positions in northern Iraq to aid Kurdish fighters for humanitarian reasons, the White House is examining its legal options to launch raids across the border to hit the terror groups stronghold.



Preferably Congress would pass a resolution to provide the domestic legal justification for attacks against the Sunni Muslim group that now operates its Islamic State that ranges nearly from Baghdad to Damascus.

Under discussion by the administration is to invoke the War Powers Resolution which constitutionally allows emergency military actions to protect US citizens, but would need an extension granted by Congress.



The president authorized the current strikes in Iraq under that, which is legally sounds for 60 days, but expires in early October.



However, if the president wants to increase his military involvement into Syria he is expected to seek the approval of a Congress already uneasy about the limits of presidential authority to make war.



An official with the White House has not ruled out immediate air strikes in Syria against ISIS according to the Washington Post under the guise of protecting US citizens.

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'A terrorist attack': White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes used the 'T' word on Friday describing the videotaped beheading of an American news photographer



Indeed, it was revealed that the United States has already made at least one incursion into Syria in recent weeks.



On Wednesday the Pentagon divulged the failed raid to rescue James Foley was conducted over the July 4 weekend and raided the wrong camp.



'If you come after Americans, we are going to come after you,' said deputy national security adviser Benjamin Rhodes on Friday.



'We’re not going to be restricted by borders.'

Rhodes said that Foley's execution 'represents a terrorist attack against our country', giving them the pretext and legal justification to attack Syria under the guise of self-defense.

Plans are already in place to extend airstrikes to Syria should the president ask and intelligence has been compiled on ISIS leadership targets.



'When you see somebody killed in such a horrific way, that represents a terrorist attack,' Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters during a briefing on Martha's Vineyard.

'That represents a terrorist attack against our country and against an American citizen.'

Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican who chairs the powerful House Intelligence Committee, told MailOnline after the briefing that it's time for President Barack Obama to get serious about eradicating ISIS – which half the American government refers to as ISIL – instead of merely keeping the group at bay.

'The president should make clear that ISIL will soon experience the full capabilities of American might': House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers has thrown down the gauntlet, but will Obama pick it up?

'Containment is not an option,' Rogers said. 'We need to build a coalition and use American military might. The administration has now acknowledged what many have long known: ISIL is an undeniable threat to the peace and security of the United States.'

'We should not assume, however, that brutal groups like ISIL fail on their own. They fail when stronger forces decide to take aggressive and prolonged action in response to their menacing actions.'

'The president should make clear,' Rogers concluded, 'that ISIL will soon experience the full capabilities of American might. And I urge the president to develop a coherent strategy to defeat this enemy, and quickly authorize all necessary actions to do so.'

The perception of slow-willed inaction is dogging the White House, enabled by the White House's insistence that Iraq's turmoil will require a political solution – not a military one.

A Pentagon spokesman hinted on Friday that America's military involvement in Iraq wouldn't be of the long-term shock-and-awe variety.

'Nero fiddles while Rome burns,' said retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan; 'I think this president could care less about all the threats we face'

'The enemy of our enemy is our friend': Geraldo Rivera wants to 'rehabilitate' Bashar al-Assad so the dictator can help the US defeat ISIS in Syria

'What we are doing in there is in support of Iraq,' Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters during a press briefing. 'And ultimately this is a fight that the Iraqi security forces have got to take on.'

The answer to the ISIS crisis, he said, 'is going to be found in good governance.'

'Now I know that's not – you know, that doesn't offer everybody the immediacy that they might want to have with dealing with this threat, this very serious threat,' Kirby added. 'But ultimately it's defeating the ideology through good governance. It's removing the unstable conditions, the petri dish, through which groups like this can foster and grow.'

Rhodes seemed to go further a half-hour later.

'If we see [ISIS] lotting against Americans, [if] we see a threat to the United States emanating from anywhere, we stand ready to take action against that threat,' he said.

The fast-flying contradictions between the Pentagon and the White House are dizzying to some observers, particularly those who want to see a devastating U.S. response to the vicious killing of American photojournalist James Foley.

'Nero fiddles while Rome burns,' insisted retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan during a Fox News interview Thursday night. 'I think this president could care less about all the threats we face.'

'He's probably gliding along on a path where he hopes nothing will happen to the United States in the next two years while he's still the president. But the reality is ... we face a threat unlike any threat we've ever faced in our lives, and this administration seems to be doing nothing about it.'

'Dropping some bombs here and there is nice,' he snarked.

Confusion: The Pentagon's chief spokesman said Friday that the U.S. military wants permission to 'train and equip' Syria's rebel groups, at the same time the dictatorship is assuming greater importance as a potential ally in the fight against ISIS

As ISIS continued to conquer and hold territory, American military strategists are sharpening their focus on the portion of the group's fighters who remain on the Syrian side of a largely invisible border with Iraq.

Launching a decisive attack on the group in northern Iraq, they fear, will only serve to isolate ISIS in Syria, where dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime would likely keep them out of America's reach.

For that reason, the Pentagon has begun to talk openly about the need to neutralize Assad in order to take him out of the equation, leaving the U.S. free to finish the job with ISIS.

'We do not have the authorities now to begin a train-and-equip program with the moderate Syrian opposition,' Kirby explained Friday, referring to the hodgepodge of Islamists and less ideological factions who have opposed the Syrian strongman since the spring of 2011.

'We want to have those authorities and we want to have the resources that go with it,' he said.

'We're still working on that right now,' he added.

The U.S. has not – officially, at least – provided arms to those groups since many in Congress have fretted about the possibility of military materiel ultimately aiding terrorist organizations.

American arms and armored vehicles have already fallen into ISIS's hands as the group seizes hardware originally gifted to the Iraqi army.

Amid the cacophony, another approach to Assad has emerged: Some are now arguing that America should let bygones be bygones and ask him for permission to conduct anti-ISIS airstrikes in his country.

General Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of General Staff of the UK's army, said during a radio interview Friday that 'the Syrian dimension has got to be addressed. You cannot deal with half a problem.'

'The old saying "my enemy's enemy is my friend" has begun to have some resonance with our relationship with Iran,' he said. 'I think it's going to have to have some resonance with our relationship with Assad.'

'Whether it is above the counter or below the counter, a conversation has got to be held with him. Because if there are going to be any question of air strikes over Syria airspace it's got to be with the Assad regime's approval.'

General Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of General Staff of the UK's army, said during a radio interview that the West should soften on working with Assad the way it has soften previously in Iraq

UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond retorted almost immediately that Britain won't 'align' with Assad to defeat ISIS.

His country may have a 'common enemy' with the Syrian regime, Hammond said, but 'that doesn't make us friends. It doesn't make us able to trust them, it doesn't enable use to work with them.'

Television commentator Geraldo Rivera told aFox News Channel audience Friday morning that while he wants 'to see a declaration of war against ISIS,' the U.S. should aim for 'the rehabilitation of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his Shiite forces who have successfully kept them at bay.'

'The enemy of our enemy is our friend,' Rivera said, echoing Dannatt.

'I want us to rehabilitate the dictator in Damascus. I think he can be forced to make his own government more inclusive, head to some kind of settlement of the Syrian civil war and the Syrian army, a fine army, [and] join with American air power and our Iraqi allies.

'All must make common cause against this dreadful threat to civilization,' he said of the terror group.

During the Pentagon briefing, Kirby left the door open for American attacks against ISIS on Syrian soil, reacting to questions about remarks Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made a day earlier.

Syrian rebels continue to be a thorn in Bashar al-Assad's side, but will the U.S. arm them or make common cause with Assad against ISIS?

'The secretary didn't rule anything in or out,' Kirby said.

'We haven't made any decisions with regard to Syria. ... I'm not going to speak about operations that we're not conducting.'

He acknowledged that ISIS poses and 'imminent threat' and has 'grown in capability, with speed, helped along by resourcing from some of their own criminal activity, as well as donations and ransoms. ... We've all been watching this.'

But his emphasis remained on U.S. 'support' missions intended to ease the tasks in front of Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, on international coalition-building, and on hopes for an 'inclusive' Baghdad government that would no longer alienate Iraq's Sunni minority.

With a hat-tip toward other nations that have taken part in missions to date, he added that 'we have been encouraged by the assistance of international partners like the UK.'

'And I also want to take the opportunity today to thank Albania. Albania has now come forward and offered to conduct resupply missions with Kurdish forces, which again we're very grateful for.'

The George W. Bush administration was universally mocked in 2003 when it boasted that Poland had joined the the United Kingdom and Australia as the only nations offering military support duringand after the U.S. invasion.