Republicans slam Barack Obama on ‘failure to check ISIS’

Several Republican presidential candidates have accused President Barack Obama and his former secretary of state, Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, of failing in the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) militants as the terrorist attacks in Paris became a focal point of the nomination race.

Carly Fiorina, the former technology CEO, criticised the Obama administration for the “murder, the mayhem, the danger, the tragedy that we see unfolding in Paris, in the Middle East, around the world and too often in our own homeland.”

“I am angry that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton declared victory in Iraq in 2011, abandoned all of our hard-won gains for political expediency and contrary to the advice of every general that spoke with them, thus leaving vast swaths of territory and too much weaponry to be gobbled up by ISIS,” Ms Fiorina told those at the Sunshine Summit, a political gathering of Florida Republicans.

Florida Sen Marco Rubio responded to the attacks by saying: “This is a civilisational war. This is a civilisational conflict. This is not a geopolitical grievance that these people have with us. This is, basically, they believe the entire world needs to believe in what they believe in, or you die.”

Ohio governor John Kasich said the ISIS must be destroyed with a coalition of US allies because the attacks in Paris were an attack against the Western civilisation.