https://youtube.com/watch?v=5PnXmF5jCtc
Fresh off a week-long tour of the Middle East that included stops in Iraq, Kuwait, and Turkey, Senator Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) appeared on Meet the Press today to talk about the U.S. response to ISIS.
Right off the bat, host Chuck Todd asked Corker about the ongoing debate over whether to de-emphasize ISIS’s Islamic roots in official American pronouncements on the group.
“Do you think it matters whether we call ISIS ‘radical Islam,’ or just ‘radical extremists’,” Todd asked.
Corker didn’t mince words in his response.
“They are Islamic, there’s no question. They are extreme in what they’re doing. And they’re a threat to our country,” he said.
As airtight as Corker’s logic is, it seems unlikely to end the tiresome semantic debate over ISIS, which was a topic of a discussion on all five Sunday shows this week.
Still, it’s nice to know where the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee stands, given the outsize role he’s likely to play in the upcoming wrangling over authorizing President Obama to use military force against the Islamic militant group.