As President Barack Obama develops his strategy to combat the Islamic State (ISIS), he needs to be sure to include Arab nations in his coalition, says James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
"What I truly hope occurs is that in addition to whatever coalition the president is assembling, that Arab states, front and center, are a part of that coalition because they've got a lot at stake here," Zogby told J.D. Hayworth and Miranda Khan on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV Tuesday.
"This gang has to be rolled back, they have to be defeated, but they can only be defeated in the context of a comprehensive international approach and a reformed government in Iraq," he explained.
"There's both a military component, but also a political reform component, but Arab governments have to be a part of it," he said. "I hope that they will be."
The head of the Arab American Institute said that this is important because ISIS is as much an enemy to Muslims as it is to Jews and Christians.
ISIS is "the worst nightmare of everybody, including the Muslim community," Zogby said.
"ISIS has killed more Muslims than they've killed anybody," he explained. "They've killed more Sunni Muslims than they've killed anybody.
"It's a vicious militant gang of murderers who rule by fear and terror," he said.
Obama is scheduled to address the nation Wednesday to outline his strategy for combating ISIS.
Christians have come under severe attack by ISIS in Iraq, but Zogby argues that the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the Iraq War led to the persecution of Christians we are now seeing.
"Christians felt protected in Iraq," he explained. "It was a secular regime, it was a brutal regime, it was a grotesque regime, in many ways, but it was secular, and it protected the Christian minority.
"The Christian community in Iraq went from 1.4 million to 400,000 during the first decade of the Iraq War and no one paid attention," he said. "The Bush administration did not raise a peep.
"No one even knew that there was a Christian community in Iraq when the war started and when we warned, 'be careful what happens to Christians if you make this war, if you don't pay attention to them in the context of making that war,'" Zogby said. "People turned a deaf ear and ignored it."
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