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For President Barack Obama, the participation of five Arab nations in airstrikes against militants in Syria marked an unexpected foreign policy victory as he plunges the U.S. deeper into a military conflict in the Middle East that he has reluctantly embraced.

The U.S. announced the strikes hours before Obama arrived in New York for three days of talks with foreign leaders at the annual United Nations General Assembly. The cooperation by Arab partners provided a significant boost to Obama's efforts to build an international coalition to take on the Islamic State militants who have moved freely across the border between Iraq and Syria.

U.S. officials said Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates participated in the strikes against Islamic State targets, as Obama significantly ramped up U.S. military involvement in Syria, a country that has been mired in a brutal three-year civil war.

"America is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with these nations," Obama said during remarks from the White House shortly before departing for New York. "This is not America's fight alone."

The president planned to meet with the leaders of the nations that participated in the airstrikes Tuesday afternoon.

While in New York for the U.N. meetings, Obama will also be facing other crises that highlight the extraordinary range of challenges demanding U.S. attention across multiple continents. He'll speak at a high-level U.N. meeting on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and meet with other leaders to discuss Russia's provocations in Ukraine.

Along with the fight against the Islamic State, the trio of crises has raised questions about the effectiveness of Obama's foreign policy and negatively affected the American public's views of his handling of world affairs.

Obama also spoke Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on climate change and addressed the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual gathering hosted by former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, where he praised the role civil society plays in holding governments accountable.

But the bulk of the president's agenda in New York will focus on bolstering the coalition that will take on the Islamic State militants. While the U.S. has been carrying out strikes against militant targets in Iraq, Monday's strikes were the first in Syria.

Obama has insisted the U.S. would not be alone in trying to root out the Islamic State group, but the public commitments from allies had been few and far between. Before Monday night's strikes, only France had committed to airstrikes in Iraq, and Saudi Arabia had volunteered to host U.S.-led training missions for Syrian rebels.

Originally posted here:
Obama Scores Coalition Victory With Arab Strikes