President Barack Obama's former CIA director and secretary of state Leon Panetta on Tuesday joined the growing chorus of people who say his old boss needs to recognize the growing threat of the Islamic State (ISIS.)
Appearing on
Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," Panetta was diplomatic in tone, but voiced the same opinion as members of both parties and some in the mainstream press: A coalition must take out ISIS.
Panetta said France should invoke Article V of the NATO Charter, bringing in the United States and other allies into a war, after the deadly Friday attacks that left 129 dead and more than 350 wounded.
"I think the president obviously reflects tremendous concern about what took place in Paris. I think he understands that ISIS is a threat," Panetta said. "I think if there's anything that we ought to understand from these last events, it's that we have to go to war against this brutal enemy."
As for concern that Obama initially underestimated ISIS, calling it a "J.V. squad" early last year, and that he now seems unwilling to ramp up air attacks in Syria, Panetta laid the blame on bad intelligence.
"I think as a result of that you know a lot of mistakes have been made in terms of how we have dealt with ISIS," he said. "I think the president of the United States and other world leaders need to recognize that this is not a time to just kind of sit back and hope that somehow this enemy will go away. This is a time to mobilize the world against that kind of barbarism."
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