UNITED NATIONS - President Obama laid out a forceful new blueprint on Wednesday for deeper American engagement in the Middle East, telling the United Nations General Assembly that the Islamic State understood only 'the language of force' and the United States would 'work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death.'
In a much-anticipated address two days after he expanded the American-led military campaign into Syria, Mr. Obama said, 'Today, I ask the world to join in this effort,' declaring, 'we will not succumb to threats; and we will demonstrate that the future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy.'
'We will neither tolerate terrorist safe-havens, nor act as an occupying power,' Mr. Obama said. 'Instead, we will take action against threats to our security, and our allies, while building an architecture of counterterrorism cooperation.'
The military campaign against the Islamic State, Mr. Obama said, was only the most urgent of a raft of global challenges in which the United States had no choice but to play a leadership role: from resisting Russia's aggression against Ukraine to coordinating a response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa; from brokering a new unity government in Afghanistan to marshaling a new push to confront climate change.
Source: Estimates from the Defense Department
January 1 to May 31
Over 151 days, families, on average, were displaced daily.
Anbar Province
321,210 families known displaced
Months before it became something of a household name, ISIS took control of much of Anbar Province, displacing an estimated 500,000 Iraqis.
June 1 to July 31
Over 61 days, families, on average, were displaced daily.
Anbar Province
321,210 families known displaced
Another half-million Iraqis were displaced in June and July when ISIS captured Mosul and advanced south toward Baghdad.
August 1 to August 6
Over 6 days, families, on average, were displaced daily.
Anbar Province
321,210 families known displaced
In early August, ISIS seized several towns under Kurdish control, displacing Yazidis, Christians and other religious minority groups. Although the United Nations says that the capture of Sinjar may have displaced as many as 33,000 families, that number is not yet included in the official data.
Note: The United Nations estimates one Iraqi family is equal to six individuals. Source: IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix
Click group names for more details.
Ottoman Empire Sykes-Picot Agreement Current Boundaries Ottoman Empire
Before WWI, the Middle East was divided into several administrative provinces under the Ottoman Empire. Modern Iraq is roughly made up of the Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra.
Sykes-Picot Agreement
In 1916, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, British and French diplomats, secretly drew the first map to divide up the Ottoman Empire, beginning a series of border negotiations that led to the establishment of British and French mandates in 1920.
Religious and Ethnic Regions Today
Iraq's current boundaries bring together different, often adversarial, groups under one mixed national identity that has been strained by conflict. Still, if Iraq were to split, partition would not be so simple as drawing new borders along religious or ethnic lines.
Sources: Rand, McNally & Co. World Atlas (1911 Ottoman Empire map); United Kingdom National Archives (Sykes-Picot); Dr. M. Izady, Columbia University's Gulf 2000 project (religious and ethnic map)
Key Sunni majority Shiite majority Christian majority Mixed areas
2003: Before the Invasion
Before the American invasion, Baghdad's major sectarian groups lived mostly side by side in mixed neighborhoods. The city's Shiite and Sunni populations were roughly equal, according to Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor and Middle East expert.
2009: Violence Fuels Segregation
Sectarian violence exploded in 2006. Families living in areas where another sect was predominant were threatened with violence if they did not move. By 2009 Shiites were a majority, with Sunnis reduced to about 10 percent to 15 percent of the population.
* Kadhimiya, a historically Shiite neighborhood, is home to a sacred Shiite shrine.
* Adhamiya, a historically Sunni neighborhood, contains the Abu Hanifa Mosque, a Sunni landmark.
* The Green Zone became the heavily fortified center of American operations during the occupation.
* Sadr City was the center of the insurgent Mahdi Army, led by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
* Huriya was transformed in 2006 when the Mahdi Army pushed out hundreds of families in a brutal spasm of sectarian cleansing.
* More than 8,000 displaced families relocated to Amiriya, the neighborhood where the Sunni Awakening began in Baghdad.
* Adhamiya, a Sunni island in Shiite east Baghdad, was walled and restricted along with other neighborhoods in 2007 for security.
* Neighborhoods east of the Tigris River are generally more densely populated than areas to the west.
2003: Before the Invasion
Before the American invasion, Baghdad's major sectarian groups lived mostly side by side in mixed neighborhoods. The city's Shiite and Sunni populations were roughly equal, according to Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor and Middle East expert.
* Kadhimiya, a historically Shiite neighborhood, is home to a sacred Shiite shrine.
* Adhamiya, a historically Sunni neighborhood, contains the Abu Hanifa Mosque, a Sunni landmark.
* The Green Zone became the heavily fortified center of American operations during the occupation.
* Sadr City was the center of the insurgent Mahdi Army, led by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
2009: Violence Fuels Segregation
Sectarian violence exploded in 2006. Families living in areas where another sect was predominant were threatened with violence if they did not move. By 2009 Shiites were a majority, with Sunnis reduced to about 10 percent to 15 percent of the population.
* Huriya was transformed in 2006 when the Mahdi Army pushed out hundreds of families in a brutal spasm of sectarian cleansing.
* More than 8,000 displaced families relocated to Amiriya, the neighborhood where the Sunni Awakening began in Baghdad.
* Adhamiya, a Sunni island in Shiite east Baghdad, was walled and restricted along with other neighborhoods in 2007 for security.
* Neighborhoods east of the Tigris River are generally more densely populated than areas to the west.
Source: Dr. M. Izady, Columbia University's Gulf 2000 project
Source: Satellite image by NASA
Sources: Global Terrorism Database, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (attack data); Congressional Research Service; Council on Foreign Relations; Long War Journal; Institute for the Study of War
Source: 'The Islamic State in Iraq Returns to Diyala' by Jessica Lewis, Institute for the Study of War
Safin Hamed/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images
Mr. Obama delivered a searing critique of Russia's incursions into Ukraine and promised to impose a rising cost on the government of President Vladimir V. Putin for what he called its aggression.
'This is a vision of the world in which might makes right,' he said, 'a world in which one nation's borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed.'
It was a starkly different president than the one who addressed skeptical world leaders at the General Assembly last year, weeks after calling off a threatened missile strike on Syria over the use of chemical weapons. Mr. Obama spoke with the urgency of a wartime president, seeking to rally allies for what he said would be a momentous struggle against the forces of Islamic extremism in the Middle East.
Still, it remained unclear whether Mr. Obama's speech represented a fundamental reconsideration of his policy or a reluctant response to the threat posed by the Islamic State, which took on emotional resonance for the American public after the militants posted videos of American hostages who were beheaded.
Mr. Obama made clear that the United States would act only if surrounded by a broad coalition. He dwelled on his success in signing up five Arab nations to take part in the airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, casting it as a historic moment in which the Sunni Arab world was united to fight the scourge of Sunni extremism.
In an echo of his speech to the Islamic world in 2009, Mr. Obama addressed young Muslims directly, appealing to them to resist the blandishments of violent jihadism. Foreign fighters are one of the most immediate threats from the rise of the Islamic State.
'You come from a great tradition that stands for education, not ignorance; innovation, not destruction; the dignity of life, not murder,' Mr. Obama said. 'Those who call you away from this path are betraying this tradition, not defending it.'
To some extent, Mr. Obama's remarks seemed designed to get past months in which the president appeared openly conflicted about the proper use of American military force in the Middle East - an ambivalence that opened him to criticisms of being irresolute.
The speech was the centerpiece of a hectic three days of diplomacy for Mr. Obama, who met on Tuesday with the five Arab leaders to thank them for supporting the Syria operation. Later Wednesday, he was scheduled to lead a Security Council meeting where he would be seeking approval of counterterrorism resolution. He also was planning to meet with Iraq's new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, and with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, whom American officials hope will make fresh commitments to the military campaign.
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