Clinton outlines her plan to defeat ISIS.

Hillary Clinton called for accelerating the U.S.-led operation to defeat the Islamic State on Thursday, going well beyond what President Barack Obama has proposed by urging a no-fly zone with coalition forces to protect Syrians, expanding the deployment of Special Operations troops to assist local ground forces, and significantly stepping up airstrikes.

“Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS,” Clinton said, using an acronym for the Islamic State, the group that has claimed responsibility for the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday.

Speaking in New York at the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton took sharp aim at the Republican presidential candidates who have called for the United States to stop accepting Syrian refugees. “We cannot allow terrorists to intimidate us into abandoning our values and our humanitarian obligations,” she said.

At the same time, she declared that the aftermath of the attacks in the French capital was “no time to be scoring political points.”

Clinton’s approach to the Islamic State after the Paris attacks remains an incremental increase over what the White House is now doing — just one that would be executed at a faster pace. The Pentagon has said, for example, that it will bolster the use of Special Forces if the initial effort to train and equip Kurdish fighters and improve the targeting of airstrikes is successful; Clinton appeared ready to do that now.

She called for more air power, but only in coop- eration with Persian Gulf allies, and acknowledged, under questioning from Fareed Zakaria, the moderator of the event, that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had halted their air attacks on the Islamic State, instead focusing their efforts in Yemen.

Clinton argued that creating a no-fly zone, enforced by many countries, “will confront a lot of our partners on what they are willing to do.” And, she argued, it would bolster the diplomacy that her successor as secretary of state, John Kerry, is pursuing to try to bring about a ceasefire.

Clinton did not directly criticize Obama’s approach, and she said her plan amounted to “an intensification and acceleration of the strategy” the White House has put forth.