Despite repeated warnings for the past year from the intelligence community, military officials, and lawmakers about the Islamic State (ISIS), President Barack Obama can't make hard decisions on how to address the threat posed by the militants, said Lt. Col. Ralph Peters.
Peters told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" that Obama was like someone who had symptoms of a terrible disease and "refuses to go to the doctor because they are afraid of the diagnosis."
"I think we've got a real problem that goes even beyond ISIS in this case. We have a president — for whatever his virtues or negatives — it's not just that he won't make hard decisions, it seems that he can't," said retired Army officer Peters on Wednesday.
Peters said it presented "one of the worst qualities you can possibly have in a commander in chief," adding Obama had wanted to insist "he had defeated al-Qaida," and to be able to proclaim that "Islamist terrorism was done."
"He seemed to imagine, and I'm not exaggerating it, that somehow if he ignored this cancer, as he called it, it would go away. And as we all know, cancer and terrorists don't go away on their own," he said.
The Islamic State forces were playing a "zero sum game," Peters maintained, and said they were "morally, emotionally, and physically committed" to their cause.
"They've got morale on their side. They're smart," he said. "They know what they're doing. They know what they want."
By contrast, Peters said the Obama administration "doesn't know what it's doing, doesn't know what it wants, except that it wants it all to go away."
"This president, faced with this ferocious, determined enemy, is always calculating how little he can get away with doing," Peters said.
Obama approved the use of limited airstrikes against ISIS, and has been assembling a coalition of allies in the campaign against the militants. Though he has consistently refused to approve the use of ground troops in the battle, the White House has said the U.S. would assist in training Syrian rebel forces and Iraqi fighters.
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