You Know It’s Bad When Even Jimmy Carter Is Criticizing President Obama’s Foreign Policy
You know it’s bad when Jimmy Carter is criticizing your foreign policy.
In an interview published yesterday, the 39th President of the United States went after President Obama for his judgement on foreign affairs. Carter said Obama “waited too long” to fight ISIS and pointed out that his two Secretaries of Defense have criticized him once they left his Cabinet.
“Former President Jimmy Carter is criticizing key foreign policy decisions of President Obama, including drone strikes on four Americans abroad and a failure to act promptly to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“Obama’s Middle East policy is difficult to determine as “it changes from time to time,” Carter said in an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday.
“‘I noticed that two of his secretaries of Defense, after they got out of office, were very critical of the lack of positive action on the part of the president,” Carter noted.
“In a media blitz this past week, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta blasted Obama, in one interview suggesting the president might have “lost his way.”
“Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates also criticized Obama in his memoir, saying the president “doesn’t believe in how own strategy.” Recently, Gates said that Obama would need U.S. ground troops to defeat ISIS, something Obama has repeatedly rejected.
“‘First of all, we waited too long, Carter told the Star-Telegram about Obama’s response to ISIS.
“‘We let the Islamic State build up its money, capability and strength and weapons while it was still in Syria,’ he said. ‘Then when [ISIS] moved into Iraq, the Sunni Muslims didn’t object to their being there and about a third of the territory in Iraq was abandoned.'”
A common conservative refrain is that President Obama is the new Jimmy Carter, but after this article, perhaps that’s a bit unfair to Carter.