{"id":21499,"date":"2014-09-18T13:41:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T17:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=21499"},"modified":"2014-09-18T13:41:55","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T17:41:55","slug":"gates-obama%e2%80%99s-isis-strategy-is-unattainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/21499\/gates-obama%e2%80%99s-isis-strategy-is-unattainable\/","title":{"rendered":"Gates: Obama\u2019s ISIS Strategy Is &#8220;Unattainable&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Intentionally or not, President Barack Obama\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/blogs\/gates-there-will-be-boots-ground-if-theres-be-any-hope-success-strategy_805248.html \" target=\"_blank\">current strategy for defeating and destroying ISIS is &#8220;unattainable,&#8221;<\/a> says his first Defense Secretary, Robert Gates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026there will be boots on the ground if there\u2019s to be any hope of success in the strategy. And I think that by continuing to repeat that [there won\u2019t be troops on the ground], the president in effect traps himself,\u201d Gates said on CBS This Morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m also concerned that the goal has been stated as \u2018degrade and destroy\u2019 or \u2018degrade and defeat\u2019 ISIS,\u201d because it sets an &#8220;unattainable&#8221; goal.<\/p>\n<p>Gates is speaking from experience. As Defense Secretary for both Obama and George W. Bush, he saw the United States military inflict \u201csome terrible blows\u201d against al Qaeda \u2013 including the killing of Osama bin Laden. But even after 13 years of warfare, al Qaeda hasn\u2019t been destroyed or completely defeated.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, Gates indicated that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/theoval\/2014\/09\/03\/obama-biden-isil-steven-sotloff-james-foley\/15022195\/ \" target=\"_blank\">the bluster of Joe Biden<\/a> may come closer to the mark. In a speech earlier this month in New Hampshire, the vice president said that ISIS terrorists should know that the United States \u201cwill follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meting out some measure of justice \u2013 be it death on the battlefield or convictions for war crimes \u2013 to specific ISIS members is a realistic goal, if ground troops are used.<\/p>\n<p>The confusing aspect about Obama\u2019s current ISIS policy is that it is both too little (no ground forces) and too much (complete destruction). Untethered from reality, it\u2019s a strategy that looks like it is set up to fail.<\/p>\n<p>H\/T: Weekly Standard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intentionally or not, President Barack Obama\u2019s current strategy for defeating and destroying ISIS is &#8220;unattainable,&#8221; says his first Defense Secretary, Robert Gates. \u201c\u2026there will be boots on the ground if there\u2019s to be any hope of success in the strategy. And I think that by continuing to repeat that [there won\u2019t be troops on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,274,4587,4578,101,190],"class_list":["post-21499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-iraq","tag-isil","tag-isis","tag-joe-biden","tag-robert-gates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21499"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21512,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions\/21512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}