Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes believes people are turning against ISIS not because of their barbarity, but because they govern poorly.

Appearing on CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked Rhodes about the likelihood of “house-to-house, street-to-street” battles between Iraqis and ISIS terrorists.

“How worried are you about civilian casualties?” Blitzer asked.

“We’re always concerned about this, Wolf, particularly in dealing with a group like ISIL that values civilian life not at all,” Rhodes responded.

“We think that they’ll resort to terrorist tactics as they’ve done in other places.”

But then Rhodes waded into the truly bizarre.

“But there’s one very important point I’d make here, Wolf, though, which is the people of Mosul – we get from every report that we receive is that they hate living under ISIL. That ISIL is not very good at governing. They’re not keeping the electricity on. They’re not picking up the trash.

“And frankly the people of Mosul are going to want to get rid of ISIL. And so this is not simply a situation where you have forces moving in. I think you’ll see people from within the city want to get rid of living under the yoke of this horrific organization that doesn’t offer anything in terms of a better life.

“That would be an important dynamic as well.” Rhodes concluded.