I'm really not sure what you expect the US - or any western government - to do. Mali isn't a priority right now. The French had already done their part by driving the rebels out of the country a while ago, but they can't stay forever. We can't engage in a game of whack-a-mole, or we'll go bankrupt and drive ourselves insane in the process.
Well, as I understand it, the Mali situation was al-Qaeda and these are Kerry's comments on that organization.
With respect to Syria, it's no doubt complicated. Iran and Russia support the Assad government. Both France and the US would like to see Assad gone not to mention Turkey and the Saudis. We know a significant source of their revenue comes from oil. Seems that everyone with the exception of the Russians is reluctant to knock out the main refineries. After all, they'd need to be rebuilt but we're also concerned about collateral deaths. Exxon or whomever could get those up in short order IMO.
We just want to target ISIS, Russia seems more pragmatic and will target various opposition groups. To my way of thinking, I'm in total awe of the overall precision of the smart weapons. However, people who belong to al-Qaeda one day, swear allegiance to al-Nusra or ISIS the next. I see Russia saying you guys are all destabilizing elements so tag you're it.
Obama says ISIS is contained, D. Feinstein the Democratic Senator from California disagrees. Pilots who have flown missions have said when they've identified potential targets, 75% of the time they've been told to back off. Reports from the ground which are unvarnished become modified when sent to their superiors to make them sound much better than they are. These get passed on to the President and the reason that they get massaged is because he wants to see what he expects. If you lived through Vietnam then you know there was plenty of bad intelligence being given. Lies. If you're a person who disagrees with the President you can expect an early retirement.
The mainstream press doesn't accurately or fully report most of this. They blame Bush for ISIS and certainly a case can be made for that. So can one for Saudi Arabia and their export of Wahhabism. So can one for Obama being so hell bent on removing troops. I mean we still have troops in Okinawa, Korea, Europe, etc. So can a case be made that Europe didn't want to pitch in and maintain a military presence.
It's complicated but some leader needs to lead and as I see it, it's not us and that's OK.