Ex-Marine General Says Obama’s ISIS Policy Is Fundamentally Flawed

Retired Marine General James Conway, who served as the 34th Commandant of the Marine Corps toward the end of the Bush administration as well as at the start of the Obama administration, said that, in his opinion, the president’s ISIS policy is doomed to fail.

Speaking to reporters at the Washington D.C. Maverick PAC Conference on Friday, Conway spoke to a source at the event about Obama’s ISIS strategy, saying, “I don’t think the president’s plan has a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.”

Apparently, Conway’s main concern is that America doesn’t have foot soldiers in Syria. In his opinion, the U.S. military also doesn’t have a reliable enough proxy force on the ground like the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq.

Despite the fact that Obama thinks he can support moderate rebels fighting against ISIS in Syria, numerous commentators have noted that none of the rebels in Syria are, in fact, moderate, and therefore can’t be trusted.

Business Insider reported that General Conway’s position isn’t to be sniffed at, as he also serves as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What’s more, during the 2003 Iraq War, he led the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Another retired General, James Mattis, who served as head of Central Command from 2010 until his retirement in 2013, told the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday that Obama’s ISIS strategy is plain and simply wrong.

“You just don’t take anything off the table up front, which it appears the administration has tried to do,” he said.

The Washington Times also reported that Mattis also suggested that it showed weakness on behalf of the Obama administration, as the last thing you want to do in a war situation is to inform your enemy of your plans to not send troops to fight them.

“Specifically, if this threat to our nation is determined to be as significant as I believe it is, we may not wish to reassure our enemies in advance that they will not see American ‘boots on the ground. If a brigade of our paratroopers or a battalion landing team of our Marines would strengthen our allies at a key juncture and create havoc/humiliation for our adversaries, then we should do what is necessary with our forces that exist for that very purpose.”

Many in the higher echelons of the U.S military are hoping that President Obama will toughen up in his stance against ISIS and not go down a path that will lead to the terror organization’s success, be that in Syria, Iraq, or mainland America.