NY Times: Obama Said That Islamic State Made A Strategic Error In Killing American Journalists, As It Provoked Support For U.S. Intervention. According to a September 13 New York Times report, Obama told a group of journalists at a private White House meeting on September 10 that the Islamic State’s beheading of kidnapped journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff was a strategic error on the group’s part, as it had led to greater support for U.S. military action (emphasis added):

Mr. Obama had what guests on Wednesday afternoon described as a bereft look as he discussed the murders of Mr. Foley and Mr. Sotloff, particularly because two other Americans are still being held. Days later, ISIS would report beheading a British hostage with another video posted online Saturday.

But the president said he had already been headed toward a military response before the men’s deaths. He added that ISIS had made a major strategic error by killing them because the anger it generated resulted in the American public’s quickly backing military action.

If he had been “an adviser to ISIS,” Mr. Obama added, he would […]