Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey appeared on MSNBC today and systematically picked apart President Obama’s failed strategy to confront ISIS — or lack thereof — in about 60 seconds.
“General, I take from your remarks that we could do so much more militarily,” anchor Brian Williams said to the former Clinton appointee.
“At the end of the day, we’ve been completely ineffective,” McCaffrey said. “And this idea of finding moderate opposition inside Syria, spending hundreds of millions of dollars. The Iraqi army took off like scalded hares — two and a half divisions — leaving behind literally billions of dollars worth of equipment.
McCaffrey believes the U.S. has tried to “micromanage” the situation and concluded what’s happening is a “Shia-Sunni religious war.”
“I think we have to rethink the whole process,” he said. “The president’s notion that they were the J.V., that they were contained, that the only option is that there’s 150,000 troops back into Iraq is nonsense.
“We can do better containing and attacking directly ISIS where they live, both in Iraq and Syria and Lebanon and elsewhere.”
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