Mika Brzezinski to Obama: Wasn’t al Qaeda Supposed To Be ‘Decimated’?

Brzezinski Charges Obama: Wasn’t Al-Qaeda Supposed to Be ‘Decimated’? (Mediaite)

In an interview pre-taped Friday but aired onMorning Joe Monday morning, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski pressed President Barack Obama on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, charging, “You said that the war was ended in Iraq. You said al-Qaeda was decimated. You said it was stable.”

“It was,” Obama replied. “But just because something is stable two years ago or four years ago doesn’t mean it’s stable right now.”

Obama emphasized that the U.S. needed to work with other forces in the region to contain ISIS, but that it couldn’t go playing “whack-a-mole,” occupying a country every time an Islamic militant group popped up in the Middle East. He also denied that there was some magic U.S. action that could have been taken in Syria to prevent ISIS’ rise, and also maintained that the situation did not change his calculus for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.