President Obama Admits U.S. Administration “Underestimated” ISIS Capabilities In Syria
President Barack Obama admitted in an interview aired on CBS today that U.S. intelligence agencies completely underestimated ISIS’ capabilities in Syria.
He also suggested that the relevant officials got things wrong as they totally overestimated the ability of the Iraqi army to fight the militant group.
During the 60 Minutes interview, which was taped on Friday, Obama cited comments made by James Clapper, director of national intelligence, acknowledging that US intelligence underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.
Even though Islamic militants went underground when US Marines quashed al-Qaeda in Iraq with help from Iraq’s tribes, Obama said that wasn’t the case in Syria,
“Over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos. And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world.”
Just last week, Obama expanded US-led air strikes on Syria, and he has been seeking to build a wider coalition effort to weaken ISIS. Over the past few months, ISIS has killed thousands and brutally beheaded at least three westerners while seizing parts of Syria and northwestern Iraq.
The Washington Post reported this month that James Clapper also admitted the U.S. had got it all wrong when it came to ISIS, “I didn’t see the collapse of the Iraqi security force in the north coming,” Clapper was quoted as saying. “I didn’t see that. It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable.”
In outlining his new strategy against ISIS, Obama said in the interview,
“We just have to push them back, and shrink their space, and go after their command and control, and their capacity, and their weapons, and their fueling, and cut off their financing, and work to eliminate the flow of foreign fighters.”
Fine objectives – maybe. However, as has been demonstrated time and again, airstrikes alone have limited potential.
Eventually, it has to come to “boots on the ground.” Without that, the U.S. will end up doing what it seems to do best.
Declaring “victory” — and pulling out.
