President Barack Obama has made several decisions that have led to the crisis situation in the Middle East with the Islamic State, Senate Republican Conference Leader John Thune said Friday.
"A lot of his decisions, and obviously, the one critical decision to withdraw from Iraq, opened the door to ISIS," the South Dakota Republican told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"The decision not to enforce the red line in Syria has contributed to the chaos there, and a lot of the decisions are starting to compound."
Thune said he agrees with
former President Jimmy Carter, who "said it best" earlier this year that "if you look around the world, there isn't a single place where we're better off than when President [Obama] took office."
He continued that the best answer for the growing Syrian refugee crisis is to defeat ISIS, and unless that happens, it will be difficult for refugees to remain in their home country.
"We're not going to beat these guys by containing," said Thune. "We have to defeat them and that's going to take an effort from the United States and leadership from the president and coalition of partners" in Europe and the Middle East.
And meanwhile, Thune said he would like to see Obama "devote the same energy to attacking ISIS" as he does in "attacking Republicans."
"Frankly, what I would like to see him do is come to Congress and figure out a way to work with us to address this," the South Dakota senator said. "Right now, people are drawing lines in the sand and that's not helpful."
On Thursday, he noted, 47 Democrats joined with Republicans in the House to deal with the refugee issue after hearing from the White House and coming away "saying 'we're not convinced.'"
"I think there's Democrats like Republicans who are very concerned by the threats that exist and the response of the administration in dealing with it," Thune said.
When pressed on what he would do if he were president about determining how many troops could be needed to eradicate ISIS, Thune replied that he's not the president and he doesn't intend to be, but believes the president should listen to his military leaders.
"The U.S. is probably going to have to have more of a commitment in terms of on the ground," said Thune.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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