In remarks on his request for a new authorization from Congress for military action against ISIS, President Obama made an odd new commitment: not to allow “these terrorists to have a safe haven.”

That Obama will describe ISIS as “these terrorists” rather than “violent extremists,” as he had before, is a step in the right direction. But the strange thing is that ISIS does have a safe haven — and Obama, whether he admits it or not, is one of its chief guarantors.

In fact, ISIS has the only safe haven in Syria, a land engulfed in a multi-layered war with numerous belligerent parties.

Nearly all of Syria today is open to attack in the form of air strikes and ground incursions, not to mention car-bombs and suicide attacks — except for ISIS’ headquarters.

On one side we have Bashar al-Assad’s death squads, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds (Jerusalem) Corps, jointly trying to recapture territory lost by the regime in Damascus. On the opposite side are some 30 armed outfits, among them groups linked to al Qaeda, fighting the pro-Assad coalition.

Yet both sides steer clear of ISIS’s “safe haven.”

The pro-Assad coalition (which also includes Russia, though not in a direct combat role) sees ISIS as a de facto ally for two reasons.

First, the group’s unprecedented savagery makes for a prime propaganda tool to justify Assad’s rule-by-massacre and turn Western opinion against the anti-Assad coalition.

Second, ISIS has been a key factor in splitting Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority to the point of provoking internecine feuds that have claimed thousands of lives.

On the other end of things, the regional powers that want Assad to go, including Turkey, see ISIS as a necessary evil.

The Turks want ISIS to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish state on their own frontier, which the group has done by seizing territority to separate Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish-majority provinces.

Qatar and powerful groups in several other Arab countries also don’t want ISIS to vanish because they see it as a force that can resist the Iran-led Shiite hegemonic tide. (This is partly why Qatar and the UAE opted to quietly suspend participation in the anti-ISIS coalition supposedly led by Washington.)

Yet the factor that consolidates ISIS’s “safe haven” is the US decision not to strike targets in the group’s heartland in the Syrian province of ar-Raqqah.

Senior Iraqi officials tell me that the United States has made it clear to other coalition members, including the Baghdad government, that it will not support attacks against the ISIS heartland “at this point in time.”

Last week, when Jordan moved against ISIS to avenge the immolation of its captured pilot, Washington insisted that Jordan limit its airstrikes to the peripheries of the de facto safe haven.

The Obama administration rejects the claim that it has given ISIS a safe haven as “preposterous.” National-security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, claim that there are no “readily identifiable military targets” there and that the president is anxious to avoid collateral damage.

However, Iraqis claim that they have supplied Washington with over 100 “credible military targets” in ar-Raqqah province and the city of the same name, which is the seat of the self-styled Caliph Abubakar al-Baghdadi.

(Last month he changed his name to Husseini al-Qurayshi to claim descent from the Prophet’s grandson Hussein and roots in the Prophet’s tribe of al-Quraysh.)

Targets in ar-Raqqah include the House of the Caliph in al-Mufajea’ah, two barracks at al-Mishlab and al-Utaiba Hajjaniah, the headquarters of the Religious Police (Hasbah), the caliph’s treasury (Beit-al-Mal) and two bridges over the River Euphrates linking it to Turkey and Iraq, as well as the command and control center at al-Qahtaniyah.

The caliphate’s radio and TV network, including studios where propaganda videos are made, is located in four buildings in the ar-Rawdah neighborhood.

ISIS has also coverted a number of grain silos into arms depots in and around the city. Last week the Jordanians blew up one of them in the peripheries of ar-Raqqah at eastern Abu-Qubai.

ISIS also controls 13 small and medium-sized oil fields, all legitimate targets for coalition attacks — as is the stream of trucks and buses that bring supplies and would-be mujahedeen to ar-Raqqah from Turkey.

So long as its heart remains immune to attack, ISIS retains a free hand on all other fronts, and continues to attack, hold or retreat as seems best.

And it has Obama to thank for giving it such freedom.