Mr President: The buck stops with YOU

Apparently MIC was on 60 Minutes  last night for another of his prime time 'let me be  clear' monologues.  No, I did not watch it, but a headline from this morning caught my eye:

From Homeland Security News Wire:

Obama: U.S. intelligence underestimated ISIS strength, overestimated Iraqi military's resilience

29 September 2014
President Barack Obama on Sunday said that the U.S.intelligence community had underestimated Islamic State (ISIS) strength and level of activity inside Syria, which has become “ground zero” for jihadist terrorists worldwide, while overestimating the ability of the Iraqi army to fight such militant groups. Obama’s admission that ISIS succeeded in setting up its bases in Syria and Iraq without being noticed by U.S. intelligence may embolden Republican hawks such Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) who have been complaining for months that the administration was being too passive in its approach to the Syrian civil war.


The president, who was interviewed on CBS 60 Minutes, spoke while additional U.S.-led airstrikes were carried out in Syria and Iraq, and at the same time that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called for a ground war against ISIS.

Obama cited comments made by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, to the Washington Post earlier this month. Obama said U.S.intelligence underestimated what had been taking place in Syria after Islamic militants went underground when U.S. marines defeated al-Qaeda in Iraq with help from Iraqi tribes.

“But over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos,” Obama said. “And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world” (the president was referring to the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006-2007; the Syrian civil war erupted in early 2011)....

There is more to read here, as MIC continues his usual MO of not listening to any of his Military experts, and laying the blame for his foreign policy failures on everybody else, except where it belongs.

Related:  Go over and read This Ain't Hell: Obama: US misjudged Iraqi army, militants’ threat

ISIS: Obama misses the point

Yes, that headline more than sums up my views on the current ineptitude,  on a global scale, as politicians finally address the ongoing threat of Islamist murderers...These days more than a few experts,  and the not-so-expert analysts,  are commenting on Obama's handling of the ongoing - and evolving - ISIS *crisis.*

From Homeland Security NewsWire:

Obama’s new strategy still misses Islamic State’s weakest link

By Denis Dragovic

12 September 2014

President Barack Obama was right to say in his speech on Wednesday that “ISIL is certainly not a state.” While IS does not have standing as a state among the community of nations, its strategy is focused on establishing an Islamic State. That’s why any response by the United States should be focused on preventing it from doing so. Unlike terrorist groups that seek to disrupt society, IS is focused on the establishment of a new society. Doing so requires IS to build the three pillars critical to a functioning state: Creating legitimacy; providing public security; and catering to the basic needs of the population, such as water, food, health, and shelter. Seeing Islamic State as an overextended rogue state, rather than a terrorist network, and working to weaken the civil pillars of the state it is trying to establish, offers the best chance of stopping IS.

U.S. president Barack Obama has announced a more aggressive strategy against Islamic State, including air strikes against its fighters “wherever they are”, even inside Syria — which he had previously ruled out....

There is more here.