Former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke said Sunday that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a much greater threat to the United States than al Qaeda ever was.
“We’ve known for months that they have an external attack branch, and we knew that it was planning an attack or a series of attacks outside of their region in Europe or the United States,” Clarke said of ISIS in an interview on ABC’s This Week. “These three attacks [in Paris] were all ISIS, they were all planned for months. They all have central command and control out of Syria, and that means they’re going to be trying it here. Whether or not they can get through, it’s a much harder target here.”
“ISIS is much more capable” than al Qaeda, Clarke added. “There are more of them. They have more money. They have more discipline, more training. This is a much bigger threat than we ever faced with Al Qaeda.”
Clarke, who served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, is often quoted and admired by Democrats for his sharply critical take on the Bush administration’s inability to prevent the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Retired General Jack Keane shared a similar assessment of ISIS during an interview on Fox News Sunday. “ISIS is the most successful terrorist organization that we have in modern history,” Keane said. “They’ve exceeded al Qaeda by a factor of X some time ago. They’re conducting a conventional war in Iraq and Syria where they hold large swaths of territory. At the same time in the last two weeks alone, they’ve killed and wounded over 900 people from the countries supporting the effort against them–Russian people, Lebanese people, and now obviously French people. That is unprecedented, and it’s a stunning achievement.”
During Saturday night’s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton declared that ISIS “must be defeated,” but the likely 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said twice that the war against ISIS “cannot be an American fight.”
