Senator Dianne Feinstein (D. CA), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was on "Meet the Press" this morning sounding like she's itching for President Obama to attack ISIS already:
Asked by NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell if Obama's statement that the U.S. did not yet have a strategy to deal with ISIS projected weakness, Feinstein replied, "I think I've learned one thing about this president, and that is he's very cautious. Maybe in this instance, too cautious."
"I do know that the military, I know that the State Department, I know that others have been putting plans together," the senior lawmaker added.
Feinstein also deviated from Obama's characterization of the Islamic militant group that is laying siege to parts Iraq and Syria as a "JV team," saying "I think it's a major varsity team," and, "I see nothing that compares with its viciousness."
Well DiFi, prepare to be disappointed because the Obama Administration refuses to be rushed on this:
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Obama will continue to move at his own speed to respond to these crises, regardless of criticism. “There’s no timetable for solving these problems that’s going to meet the cable news cycle speed,” he said. “It’s not a tenable thing. We’d much rather do this right than do it quickly. We tried the opposite [during the Bush years] and it worked out very poorly.”
This week, Obama will have an opportunity to show global leadership at a crisis-packed summit with European allies. Immediately afterward, Secretary of State John F. Kerry will travel to the Middle East, where potential partners, waiting to see whether Obama has the capacity to chart a clear, decisive course, are hoping for direction.
As the administration heads into those meetings, Kerry offered crisp and forceful marching orders. “Airstrikes alone won’t defeat this enemy,” he wrote in a Saturday op-ed article in the New York Times. “A much fuller response is demanded from the world. We need to support Iraqi forces and the moderate Syrian opposition, who are facing ISIS on the front lines.”
You can read John Kerry's New York Times op-ed piece here.
[ad]
