Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn says the reason the United States is not defeating the Islamic State is that it doesn’t have an all-out strategy for victory, citing an aversion in the Obama administration to “crush our enemies and win.”
Flynn, whose name has been mentioned as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, said the “gradualism” of the Obama administration is not working.
“There is a real weakness in our own ability to go in and use, from pure military perspective, to go in and just truly crush our enemies and win,” Flynn said Wednesday at a Heritage Foundation event promoting his new book, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies.
Flynn cited the slow buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq that began with just 175 troops back in 2014, and is now more than 5,000.
“What is it that’s happening that we can’t understand that it takes a different path to actually win?”
Flynn’s most recent job in government was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, but he was forced out in 2014. Flynn has been highly critical of Obama’s conduct of the war against the Islamic State as well as his leadership of the U.S. military, characterizing Obama as “disconnected from” and “very uncomfortable” with his military, in an interview this week with the Examiner.
“If you told us to go to fight these guys, and you’re not coming home until you’ve won, we would have had a totally different strategy, because believe me none of us want to stay in those godforsaken places.” Flynn said.
Flynn argued the U.S. lack of resolves is a “fundamental weakness” that the Islamic State and other enemies use against us.
Since Flynn was forced out, ostensibly for testifying before Congress that the American people were in greater danger, he founded the Flynn Intel Group, a commercial, government and international consulting firm.
