David Brooks Rips Obama: His ISIS Policy ‘Is a Rank Failure’

‘He has withdrawn and withdrawn and not taken those actions, even where red lines have closed’

WOODRUFF: "Let’s talk about that. And let’s first look at what — the president came right — pretty much right out of the box, David, and said, our strategy against ISIS is working. Yes, this is a bad thing, but I’m really not going to change anything in a big way. Is he right with that? Is he on track, as he says he is?"
BROOKS: "First, let me echo what — something Mark said about the reaction -"
SHIELDS: "Sure."
WOODRUFF: "Sure."
BROOKS: "--the George W. Bush reaction vs. the current reaction from the Donald Trumps and the Ben Carsons. It’s — what is the vibe now among some people is immoral, degrading, but it’s also just bad foreign policy. Ben Carson is now running for office. He’s a senior figure in the American political scene. If you’re a soldier or marine in an Arab country, Islam is the solution. And you need to show respect. And when that rhetoric flies out across the world, it makes it much harder for our diplomats abroad, for our service people abroad. It has practical impact. Now, as for President Obama, I think his policy is just a rank failure. And, frankly, he has had several — this has been a slow-rolling genocide for a long time. And in several stops along the way, there have been people in this administration and the other parties who have counseled some sort of action that I think he could have taken which have — maybe ameliorate some of the death we’re seeing. And he has withdrawn and withdrawn and not taken those actions, even where red lines have closed — have been crossed. He had a training program which didn’t work. He has had token little efforts recently. And so for him to talk self-righteously about other people and their response to the Syrian refugee — he bears some responsibility for the Syrian refugee crisis. And so he took some decisions to be inactive, which may have been right, wrong, but they were realpolitik decisions, decisions to save American interests, but at the cost of what has clearly been a genocide in Syria."

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