Obama Insists U.S. Will Not Get Drawn Into Ground War in Iraq

 President Obama on Wednesday repeated his vow to destroy Islamist terrorists in Syria and Iraq, but he insisted that the United States would not go it alone and promised a military audience that he would not send them back into direct combat.

“Whether in Iraq or in Syria, these terrorists will learn the same thing that the leaders of Al Qaeda already know: We mean what we say,” Mr. Obama said at MacDill Air Force Base. “We’ve always known that the end of the war in Afghanistan didn’t mean the end of threats or challenges to America.”

The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission,” he said. “I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq.”

Mr. Obama also faces new evidence that the public is skeptical of the president’s handling of the terror threat and is wary of being dragged into another lengthy, costly military conflict in the Middle East.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday, Americans said Republicans were more likely to do a better job of dealing with terrorism. Just 34 percent said they approved of the job Mr. Obama was doing on foreign policy, a lower approval rating on that issue than George W. Bush had in September 2006, as anger about the Iraq war swelled. Mr. Bush’s approval rating for foreign policy eventually sank to 25 percent.

Mr. Obama’s advisers dismiss such poll results, saying there is little reason to expect people to be positive about a president’s foreign policy when they are bombarded daily with gruesome news like the beheadings of Americans held in Syria by Islamic extremists.

White House officials point to polls that suggest a majority of Americans support the president’s approach in the Middle East, including his decision to rule out sending ground troops into combat.