US President Barack Obama’s strategy in fighting the Daesh (ISIL) terrorists in Iraq and Syria needs “to be sped up an intensified”, former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates says. I think that while ISIS is a long-term problem for us, we have near-term issues associated with it. All you have to do is look at the downing of the Russian airliner and the attacks in Paris and the attacks in Beirut and so on.
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Gates, who was also an officer in the US Air Force and during the early part of his military career, said that Ankara’s move in shooting down a Russian Sukhoi-24 bomber in Syria has “embarrassed” Moscow in the wake of its aerial campaign in Syria which was started late September.
“I don’t know what that is”, he said. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that the USA deploy 10,000 troops to the region.
“But Russia sure complicates the options we have in Syria, with the amount of aircraft, with the amount of arms that they have there”. But she also suggested a more flexible role for the more than 3,000 US forces now serving in Iraq as trainers and advisors. “If we can focus those [efforts] on ISIS versus the moderate opposition forces that are trying to defeat Assad, we could make a real impact, but that’s going to take a great deal of diplomacy that we have yet to see”. What their goals are. “The Saudis are mostly anxious about Iran”.
“You’ve gotten a Iranian-influenced government in Baghdad and the notion that they would invite Saudi or Gulf State troops into their country to fight what is an internal fight in their eyes, I think is very unrealistic”, Gates said.
However, he noted, the United States should not expect those two countries to send their own troops into battle.
“So, to talk about containment is really a joke”. Any time we have intelligence that may have been altered to fit a narrative that might be the narrative set by the White House is concerning to me.
“We need a president who will, in Lincoln’s terms, appeal to ‘the better angels of our nature, ‘” Gates said.
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The ex-CIA chief added that the USA needs more military advisers in Iraq to work in coordination with tribal groups and Iraqi security forces.
