Washington Post columnist David Ignatius asserted Wednesday that President Obama’s seemingly nonchalant response to the rise of the Islamic State isn’t part of some larger strategy, and instead reflects Obama’s incompetence.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday, Ignatius recalled when Obama infamously referred to the insurgent group as the “JV” of terrorist organizations.
“I think the ‘JV’ comments were a disastrous mistake. And both the president and his director of national intelligence said ‘we underestimated ISIS,'” he said.
“That goes back now a year and a half. In the more recent period, what we have seen is the president looking at a bunch of things that aren’t working very well, saying we’re going to do the things that work and stop the things that don’t work,” he added. “It is his style to a fault to be dry and detached and if we have learned anything about the man in seven years, that is who he is.”
The president announced Wednesday that there is no indication that the Islamic State has an attack planned in the United States over the Thanksgiving holiday. His remarks come a few weeks after Islamic State-linked terrorists besieged Paris, killing 130 and injuring hundreds more.
“My only point is we now have a plan to send special operations forces into Syria to work with our proxy allies, and move village by village toward Raqqa, the capitol of the Islamic State,” Obama said.
“We are also operating with our special operation forces to take out people who are planning plots against the United States. We’ve been doing it for many weeks now. I counted more than 50 people have been killed on the ground in Raqqa. It’s not as if there’s nothing happening,” he added.
