The Obama White House revealed its attitude toward business on Sunday by referring to the struggle against the Islamic State as “serious business.”
That was the phrase White House chief of staff Denis McDonough used in an appearance with Fox News Sunday host John Roberts, after Roberts asked McDonough to explain the White House’s “semantic game” over whether the United States is at war with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL).
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lOGAkPnU-Mo
Upon further questioning, McDonough maintained that the American kinetic action against the Islamic State will be conducted from the air, while the ground campaign will be waged by local militias and the Iraqi army, which Roberts noted has already been decisively beaten by the Islamic State in battle. In the process of defeating the army of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, the Islamic State also captured a substantial number of weapons from Iraqi federal army, some of which had been provided to Baghdad by the United States.