Fairy tales can come true, if you give them a few years, an aide to President Obama indicated Sunday, referring to the prospects of training “doctors and pharmacists” to be a fighting machine against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
The president spoke to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman last month, CNN‘s Candy Crowley recalled to Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, “and sort of described Syrian rebels as, you know, former doctors and pharmacists and sort of — and said it was a myth, a fairy tale … that we could ever arm them and put them up against a Russian-backed Syrian government. Why are they now trainable and able to push back against what everyone has said is the most brutal fighting force America has ever faced?”
McDonough, being interviewed by Crowley on “State of the Union,” responded that a little time did the trick.
“I think that the question that the president was responding to at the time was looking back a couple of years. We’ve had a relationship with these — with these fighters now for a couple of years. They’re getting better and more capable,” McDonough said.
The administration has said it opposes American boots on the ground in Iraq or Syria, but officials including Secretary of State John Kerry said this weekend that it does have some boots on the ground — in the form of Syrian fighters.
