Fmr. Clinton Defense Secretary: Obama Foreign Policy ‘Uncertain,’ Losing ‘Credibility’

“The president did not have to do that. He had the authority to take limited military action, but he's gonna throw the ball over to the Congress. Congress reacted as one predictably would assume and said, no thanks. And then it was leaked from the White House, 'Well, even if the Congress doesn't give us the authority, the president might take action anyway.' 

What kind of a signal are we sending to people under these circumstances? So, we looked uncertain -- an uncertain trumpet that we were blowing, and as a result, President Putin comes in on his white horse, no shirt on and says, 'I will bail you out. We'll get rid of the chemical weapons.' And they did, we did that. That's a plus. But at a cost. At a cost because when you draw a red-line you have to enforce the red-line otherwise you will use credibility. 

We lost credibility with those in the region. We've lost credibility with UAE, with the Saudis, with the Israelis. We've sent a signal to other adversaries, the Russians, that we are not serious when we draw a red-line. So, we are paying the penalty for that. So we have emboldened people to say, 'Well, we are not going to really contest you in a military or physical way. We are going to verbally challenge you. We will go for sanctions, but you do not have to worry about us.' I think that is part of the problem we have today in dealing with these particular issues. 

When you are looking at ISIS or ISIL, or DAESH, or whatever we are going to call them now --we are in information war. We are talking about a propaganda war. They now are putting out messages to young people who see this as pretty exciting. They are all in black. They are wearing hoods. They are cutting heads off with their knives. This is a video game for a lot of younger people. Now they can join a movement. They don't have any idea what it is going to follow that movement, or what the institutions are going to be, or what their lives are going to be like, but it is exciting. 

So the people who are that are putting out an appealing message to these young people who, number one, may not have a job, they may be educated or not, or highly educated, but they don't see a future in which they can participate and have  a stake in something, so it is very attractive to them. 

So we have got to really up our game in terms of putting out information and contesting that, as well as try to contain the spread of the violence. But it's going to be an information war and a propaganda war if you want to call it more directly what it is.”