Marco Rubio: Geographic limits on IS authorization would tell them ‘where they can go to hide’

As President Obama prepares to send an authorization for the use of force against the Islamic State terrorist group to Congress, Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, warned against imposing geographic limits on such a request.

“What the president needs to come up with is a strategy, militarily, to defeat them,” Mr. Rubio said on Fox News’ “The Kelly File.” “Which I think involves, for example, an anti-ISIL ground force made up of Arab armies, combined with U.S. Special Forces, particularly for tactical support, an increase in the airstrikes. But we need to authorize the use of force. But more importantly, we need to authorize the use of force sufficient to defeat them, to destroy them.”

One of Mr. Rubio’s potential 2016 presidential rivals, GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, has argued for geographic limits on such a request, and others on Capitol Hill are wary of signing off an open-ended authorization in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Mr. Rubio said such a move would telegraph things for the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

“If you put a geographic limit on the authorization of the use of force, you’ve basically told ISIL where they can go to hide,” he said. “If you say, for example, you can only hit [them] in Iraq and Syria, they have every incentive now to move their operations and their training facilities to some other place that’s not included within it. We need to understand — what’s the goal here? The goal here is to defeat ISIL, and if your goal is to defeat them, your goal is to defeat them no matter how long it takes, or how many places you have to go after them.”