WASHINGTON — The ongoing war of words between President Barack Obama and GOP lawmakers is a textbook example in two sides talking past one another.

The relationship between the Democratic president and Republicans on Capitol Hill soured even before he took office. In some ways, the relationship is like a marriage gone south: Even when they agree, they disagree. For instance, Republican members often accuse the president of "gutting" the military; the White House notes its 2016 military budget plan is the biggest ever.

Obama and his top lieutenants spent much of this week, including during a White House summit with allies about countering extremism, make ​making a case that the United States is not at war with Islam.

Meaning the religion t The Pew Research Center says Islam includes 1.6 billion people worldwide, or 23 percent of the world's population.

"Muslim communities, including scholars and clerics, therefore have a responsibility to push back not just on twisted interpretations of Islam, but also on the lie that we are somehow engaged in a clash of civilizations," Obama said during a summit session at the State Department.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Mark Naughton, a Security Forces Specialist from the New Jersey Air National Guard's 177th Fighter Wing, looks around the corner of a building as his team works their way across an urban ops training village at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. on June 11. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Airman 1st Class Amber Powell)

Obama wants those individuals to push back in their communities against feelings "that America and the West are somehow at war with Islam or seek to suppress Muslims, or that we are the cause of every ill in the Middle East.

"The notion that the West is at war with Islam is an ugly lie," Obama said. "And all of us, regardless of our faith, have a responsibility to reject it."

The 44th president and his Republican critics agree that the United States is not in a war with 1.6 billion people.

Yet, vitriol has flowed freely all week from Republicans — and even some Democrats.

Senate Armed Services Committee member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., took to Twitter to criticize the president.

"We will never enjoy peaceful coexistence with radical Islam because its followers are committed to destroying us and our way of life," he wrote in one tweet, adding in another:. "Mr. President the challenges we face ARE new. The Islamic State] is a terrorist army which actually holds/maintains territory the size of American states."

Graham's Senate "Three Amigos" partner, Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., fired off his own tweet on Thursday: "The notion that radical Islam isn't at war with the West is an ugly lie."

Even Democrats are getting in on the action.

House Armed Services Committee member Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, an Iraq war veteran, took to cable news recently to proclaim Obama "misses the point" when he opts against calling the Islamic State an Islamic extremist group.

"I think the danger of calling it 'an organization' misses the point that this isn't about one specific group, and until we recognize that it is this radical Islamic ideology that is fueling this, the name of the group can change, the tactics may change based on a different geographic location or what is happening on the ground," Gabbard said.

Lawmakers want to hit the Islamic State hard.

So, too, it seems, does Obama. He has sent 2,600 US troops back to the country where he promised to get them out of: Iraq. And he is commanding a daily airstrike campaign against the Islamic State.

And, in the very remarks his congressional critics have panned this week, Obama has urged US allies to stand "united against the scourge of violent extremism and terrorism."

The differences in the president's rhetoric and that desired by members is the word "Islamic" and a full-throated vow to deploy tens of thousands of American combat troops to Iraq and Syria.

Lawmakers, especially Republicans, want to burn the forest. Obama believes that's not enough, and wants to go after the root system.

"Countering violent extremism begins with political, civic and religious leaders rejecting sectarian strife," Obama said Thursday.

Second, we have to confront the warped ideologies espoused by terrorists like al-Qaida and [ISlamic State, especially their attempt to use Islam to justify their violence," Obama said.

"These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy," he added. "And all of us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like [Islamic State] somehow represent Islam, because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorists' narrative."

Obama also talked Thursday about young people in North Africa and the Middle East who are, in his words "entirely trapped in impoverished communities, where there is no order and no path for advancement, where there are no educational opportunities, where there are no ways to support families and no escape injustice and the humiliations of corruption."

Such situations breed "instability and disorder and makes those communities ripe for extremist recruitment," Obama said. "So if we're serious about countering violent extremism, we have to get serious about confronting these economic grievances."

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Obama is referring to the grievances of young Muslims on countries where prospects for economic stability and prosperity are low — and regimes often are oppressive.

But Republicans simply reject the notion that anyone who would join a group like the Islamic State has any, as Obama put it Wednesday in remarks at the White House, "legitimate grievances."

"What, exactly, does Obama mean when he says 'legitimate grievances?' wrote Katie Pavlich on the conservative news site TownHall.com. "The grievances al-Qaida and [Islamic State] hold are against infidels and Muslims who don't go far enough to wage jihad on the West. These 'grievances' aren't economic, despite what the State Department would like us to believe."

This talking past one another has stymied the American political system for six years. It likely, as was evident this week, will only get worse. After all, Obama does not have to face voters again, freeing him up to go after the roots. Lawmakers have to get re-elected, and tough rhetoric yields both votes and big campaign donations.

email: jbennett@defensenews.com

Twitter:@bennettjohnt

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