In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, many politicians — including Democrats and former members of President Barack Obama's cabinet — have criticized the commander-in-chief for failing to destroy the Islamic State (ISIS).
Moreover,
according to a new CBS News poll, only 23 percent of Americans think Obama even has a clear plan for dealing with the militant group. In fact, a whopping 66 percent think he has no clear plan, a new high for the survey.
Gathered below are eight politicians, military experts, and others who've grown increasingly worried about how Obama is failing to stop ISIS.
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1. Dianne Feinstein — "I don't think the approach is sufficient to the job," the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee
told "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "We need to be aggressive now." Feinstein said that the Islamic State has grown to be an "enormously strong" quasi-state with 30,000 fighters and significant funding. "It's a big, big problem," Feinstein continued. "This has gone on too long now. And it has not gotten better. It's gotten worse."
2. Leon Panetta — "I think that the resources applied to that mission, frankly, have not been sufficient to confront that," Obama's former Defense secretary and CIA director
said Sunday on "Meet the Press," referring to U.S. airstrikes. "I think we have to be much more aggressive and much more unified in the effort to take on ISIS . . . It's been a year. They're still in Mosul. They're still in Ramadi. They're still in Raqqah . . . Those are the areas we have to go after in order to be able to be able to defeat ISIS ultimately." Speaking on France's recent step up in bombing ISIS strongholds, Panetta said, "I'm a little surprised they haven't invoked Article 5" of NATO, which says that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."
3. Joe Scarborough — On Monday, the MSNBC host and former Republican congressman
criticized Obama for downplaying ISIS on Sunday as "a bunch of killers with good social media" that the U.S. is "not afraid" of. "There's not an intel agency on the planet that doesn't fear, I will use the word, fear ISIS," said Scarborough. "I don't know where to begin. Democrats don't know where to begin. Foreign policy experts don't know where to begin . . . That is staggering to our allies. It is staggering to [Sen.] Diane Feinstein, liberal Democrats. It's staggering to the world the president is in a bubble by himself saying these are bad guys with guns and social media."
4. Michael Morell — The former deputy and acting director of the CIA under Obama
said Sunday on "Face the Nation" that the Paris terror attacks "should be a wake up call," and that the U.S. must take the fight to ISIS in its stronghold.
"You know, the lesson learned of 9/11 was, can we, as a nation, act before we get attacked, right? And that is very difficult. You know, President Roosevelt could not bring the American people along to intervene in World War II until we were — we were attacked at Pearl Harbor," he said. "There's a similarity [to the 9/11 attacks] here that's a bit frightening to me. You have a group who says it wants to attack us, just as bin Laden said he wanted to attack us. You have them building that capability, just as bin Laden built it. We don't have great visibility into that capability, just as we did not do then. They have the single most important advantage, a safe haven, building that capability. And we just had a major attack overseas. Embassy bombings in 1998. Paris now. That should be wake-up call. The similarities are very concerning."
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5. Thomas Donilon — Obama's former national security advisor said that ISIS' Paris killings, Beirut bombings, and downing of a Russian airplane show that "the terror threat has evolved and metastasized." Along with Morrell, Donilon
suggested on "Face the Nation" that the U.S. needs to do more to dismantle ISIS' stronghold in Syria and Iraq. "One of the lessons, of course, out of 9/11 is giving these groups operational space, like they had in Afghanistan, is a dangerous thing to do for us," he said. "And the numbers are a lot bigger with respect to potential pools of terrorists."
6. Frances Townsend — The former Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush
said on "Face the Nation" Sunday that Obama's Iraq-first strategy to combating ISIS is no longer appropriate. "I think what you're seeing is the global threat is emanating out of Syria. You must have a Syria-first policy now," she said. "I really do think you've got to say to yourself, if we learned anything from 9/11, you've got to do today what you would do post an attack."
She also said Obama needs to acknowledge that his ISIS strategy isn't working in order to overhaul it. "The president would have to acknowledge that the current strategy is failing, right? You — in order to — to revitalize and intensify it, you'd have to acknowledge, right, that what we're doing isn't producing the results fast enough, to Mike [Morell]'s point. It has to have a sense of urgency."
7. Marsha Blackburn — "I think also leadership matters tremendously, and our president has shown himself incapable of leading in this fight," the six-term member of congress said on
CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. Obama "seems very timid of taking ISIS and radical Muslim extremism on. He can't even say the word," she added.
8. Bob Kerrey — On the same
CNN panel, the former senator from Nebraska, governor of Nebraska, and decorated Vietnam veteran said that Obama's refusal to put more boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq doesn't seem to be working. "We didn't win in Europe by just bombing. We landed troops," he said.
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