that s what my administration intends to stand for. all right? thank you very much, everybody. president obama at the g-20 summit in turkey. brian williams here with you from it msnbc headquarters in new york. that last remark, a defense of the values, the president said isis is fighting against. without delay, however, as the president goes off to manila in the philippines, let s go to nbc s bill neely who is in the place derepublique in paris. reporter: brian, from the high rhetoric of the president to the nitty-gritty on the ground here, france is striking back, both abroad and in syria and here at home. an extraordinary series of raids
to try to get all the parties together to recognize that there s a moderate opposition inside of syria that can form the basis for a transition government and to reach out not only to our friends but also to the russians and iranians who are on the other side of this equation to explain to them that ultimately an organization like isil is the greatest danger to them, as well as to us. so there will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward. but the strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that ultimately is going to work. but as i said from the start, it is going to take time. and what s been interesting is in the aftermath of paris as i listen to those who suggest something else needs to be done, typically the things they
no-fly zone or safe zone of some sort. and this is an example of the kind of issue where i will sit down with our top military and intelligence advisors and we will painstakingly go through what does something like that look like. and typically after we ve gone through a lot of planning and a lot of discussion and really working it through, it is determined that it would be counterproductive to take those steps, in part because isil does not have planes. so the attacks are on the ground. a true safe zone requires us to set up ground operations. and the bulk of the deaths that have occurred in syria, for example, have come about not because of regime bombing but because of on the ground
because that seems to be the only thing that they re doing is talking as if they re tough. but i haven t seen particular strategies that they would suggest that would make a real difference. now, there are few exceptions. as i said, the primary exception is those who would deploy u.s. troops on a large scale to retake territory either in iraq or now in syria. and at least they have their honesty to go ahead and say that s what they would do. i just addressed why i think they re wrong. there have been some who are well meaning, and i don t doubt their sincerity when it comes to the issue of the dire humanitarian situation in syria, who, for example, call for a
bashar assad who we do not believe has a role in syria s future because of his brutal rule. his war against the syrian people is the primary root cause of this crisis. what is different this time and what gives us some degree of hope is that, as i said, for the first time all the major countries on all sides of the syrian conflict agree on a process that is needed to end this war. and so while we are very clear-eyed about the very, very difficult road still ahead, the united states in our partnership with our coalition is going to remain relentless on all fronts military, humanitarian and diplomatic. we have the right strategy and we re going to see it through. with that i m going to take some questions and i will begin with jerome cartellia of afp. thank you, mr. president.