Washington, September 18 (RHC)-- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says Washington's military campaign against ISIL will take years and will stop only when the terrorist group is incapacitated. Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday the offensive is not going to be a brief one and will last for years.

Kerry said: "The issue that confronts us today is one on which we all ought to be able to agree. ISIL must be defeated, period, end of story." The top U.S. diplomat aid two pillars of the U.S. strategy is forming an inclusive government in Iraq and building an anti-ISIL coalition. "At this moment, no country has been asked to put boots on the ground or no country is talking of it. And we don't think it's a good idea right now."

Kerry claimed that more than 50 nations have already agreed to join the coalition to help defeat ISIL. And the U.S. secretary of state noted that Washington should dry up ISIL funding and stop the flow of foreign militants who are joining the terrorist group.

In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the U.S.-led coalition against the ISIL terrorists "ridiculous," saying the coalition members include those who provided the ISIL with weapons and training.

The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, control large parts of Syria's northern territory. ISIL sent its fighters into Iraq in June, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.