It took President Barack Obama and his top aides a week to explain that he does in fact have a strategy for confronting the Islamic State militancy. Now he has to prove that he can make it work.
Obama has embarked on building what is basically the third major U.S.-backed international coalition of the past 23 years to take on a challenge emanating from Iraq. The other two were constructed by former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush against the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Obama's vision became clearer in the week since he drew criticism for telling a White House news conference that "we don't have a strategy yet" for taking on the militant group's safe haven in Syria.