Kerry: ISIS is a 'cancer' and 'scourge' that must be confronted

In an apparent answer to criticism earlier this week over President Barack Obama's "we don't have a strategy yet" line, Secretary of State John Kerry called for a "coalition of countries" to help defeat ISIS in an opinion piece for The New York Times.

"With a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations, the cancer of ISIS will not be allowed to spread to other countries," Kerry wrote. "The world can confront this scourge, and ultimately defeat it. ISIS is odious, but not omnipotent."

Kerry outlined a broad strategy, noting that airstrikes alone would not push ISIS back from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Rather, he called for other countries to help the United States in whatever capacity they are able — from continuing to send humanitarian aid to displaced civilians, to brokering talks between conflicting nations in the region.

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"No decent country can support the horrors perpetrated by ISIS, and no civilized country should shirk its responsibility to help stamp out this disease," he wrote. "ISIS' abhorrent tactics are uniting and rallying neighbors with traditionally conflicting interests to support Iraq's new government. And over time, this coalition can begin to address the underlying factors that fuel ISIS and other terrorist organizations with like-minded agendas."

Read Kerry's full op-ed over at The New York Times.