President Barack Obama met with congressional leaders Tuesday to brief them on his strategy for dealing with the Islamic State. He is scheduled to give a speech tonight to lay his plan before the American people.

Economic sanctions seem to be the president’s all-purpose reaction to any situation in which U.S. interests or those of our allies are threatened. He has employed the weapon several times against Russian leaders, because of their intervention in Ukraine.

We hope his strategy will include going after the Islamic State through its money.

Much is known about where Islamic State money is and where it comes from. The Islamic State terrorists are selling as much as $2 million a day in Iraqi oil, from wells seized during their mini-blitzkrieg through that country.

Has the U.S. put pressure on world oil buyers to say no to the Islamic State salesmen?

Also during their offensive in Iraq, Islamic State troops took over several big banks, with as much as $2 billion in assets. Very little of that would have been in cash. In today’s electronic world, much of the banks’ money would be in digital form – that is, possessed by central banks and tapped via computers linked to the Internet. It should not be difficult at all to track those funds to where they are deposited, then cut Islamic State off from making withdrawals.

Perhaps the Obama administration already is following the Islamic State money secretly. If so, congressional leaders should be informed. If not, the government should follow the advice that super source Deep Throat gave Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal, and follow the money.