![President Barack Obama speaking about the militant threat in Syria and Iraq. Photo: Evan Vucci President Barack Obama speaking about the militant threat in Syria and Iraq. Photo: Evan Vucci](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/50b6bfa4-b691-4339-bde4-b546f09f0fd3.jpg/r0_0_729_410_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
In the face of criticism even from close political allies that the White House has been too slow in its military response to the Islamic State threat, the White House is still signaling it will not ramp up its efforts until it believes it has viable support from across the sectarian divide in the region.
If and when that happens it seems clear the President would be prepared to lead a coalition military campaign with American airpower, and call on allies such as Australia to contribute.
"I think I've learned one thing about this president, and that is he's very cautious. Maybe in this instance, too cautious," the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein told NBC's "Meet the Press" program on Sunday morning, joining a chorus of Republican critics. She described IS as a "vicious, vicious movement" that "has to be confronted".
Many US politicians who spoke to the media over the Labour Day long weekend focused on the supposed gaffe the President made when he addressed the issue in a press conference on Thursday, when he said "no strategy" for airstrikes. As the White House was at pains to point out after the press conference, Mr Obama was asked specifically about plans to extend the current air campaign into Syria when he gave that answer.
Despite the uproar the President's choice of words provoked, the White House's considered reaction to IS is holding.
"There's no timetable for solving these problems that's going to meet the cable news cycle speed," the White House senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer told the Washington Post in a story published after the comments by Senator Feinstein.
"It's not a tenable thing. We'd much rather do this right than do it quickly. We tried the opposite [during the Bush years] and it worked out very poorly."
In fact even if it has been poorly articulated the President's strategy has been in play for some time and is already showing some results.
The White House believes that while the US could rout the IS on the battlefield now, such an effort would be futile unless it is supported not only by the Shia dominated Iraqi government, but by Kurds and by Sunni's – not only in Iraq, but across the region.
To that end the US led diplomatic efforts to force the resignation of Iraq's outgoing and doggedly sectarian Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the President has dispatched his chief diplomat, Secretary of State, John Kerry, to the region to help build the coalition.
In fact according to some analysts even Mr Obama's apparent reluctance to use force has been part of the strategy. Only by withholding American military might as the IS rampaged across the border was the US able to force local leaders begin to overcome their sectarian differences.
The second part of the strategy has been the campaign of airstrikes, which are still being conducted on the pretext of preventing a humanitarian catastrophe and to protect US personnel. According to US Central Command as of late afternoon US east coast time the US military had conducted 120 airstrikes against IS targets, including 23 in the defense of the Kurdish capital of Erbil, 13 in support of refugees at Mt Sinjar, four in support of the town Amirli and 80 in support of efforts to retake the Mosul Dam from IS fighters.
The airstrikes may have been spurred by a humanitarian crisis and the rapid advance of IS fighters towards Erbil, where US consul and military personnel are based, but they have also served the broader strategy. They have blunted or halted the IS advance in Iraq and proved that IS can be defeated by local forces when supported by US airpower.
(One military strategist has noted to Fairfax Media that there appeared to be little humanitarian need to take the dam, nor did IS fighters there directly threaten US personnel.)
An expansion of operations into Syria would be more complicated. The President already has Congressional authority to direct operations in Iraq, and he does so at the invitation of the Iraqi government. In Syria, that would not be the case. The White House is adamant it will not coordinate operations with the dictator Bashar al-Assad, who is in the midst of a civil war against the IS and other militant and moderate opposition groups. Should the administration seek to broaden operations against IS across the border it may need not only new congressional authority but also international authority.
Just as it is seeking to have local actors take the lead on the ground in Iraq, the US would seek to back a democratic opposition already confronting both Assad and IS.
The US has already begun surveillance flights over Syria.
Should the White House decide that it has the political architecture in place to risk an offensive against IS it is expected it would massively expand its air operations to isolate IS fighters in towns. It would not risk civilian casualties by bombing towns but expect local forces to retake them.
Such a campaign would not only need a huge increase in airpower, but also the introduction of special forces to, at the very least, direct the strikes. The President still insists he has no intention of returning US ground troops to the region in force.