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Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, two former directors of the CIA and Defence Department, on Saturday criticised President Barack Obama's micromanagement of the military. “For the past 25 to 30 years, there has been a centralisation of power in the White House,” Panetta said during a panel discussion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “Because of that centralisation of authority at the White House, there are too few voices that are being heard.” Without naming the Obama administration, Panetta said that by the time you get to the White House, the staff has already decided what should be done. Panetta...

Obama's strategy on how to combat ISIS is confusing at best, but one thing is clear: the battle brewing between Obama and America's top generals about how to move forward against the terror army. Earlier this week during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey said there is potential he will recommend ground troops should the coalition with Arab countries against ISIS fail. “My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true but if it fails to be true and if there are...

It is becoming difficult to escape the impression that President Barack Obama heads an administration at war with itself over the appropriate strategy to combat the ISIS threat. Speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday, the president made a point of conspicuously noting again that American troops sent to Iraq “do not and will not have a combat mission.” The clarification was not unexpected; it came just one day after Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the U.S. Senate in a public hearing that there were circumstances which would lead...

Politicians from the left, right and even reporters on MSNBC are deriding President Obama’s just-minted strategy to confront the Mideast terrorist army called Islamic State, or ISIS. Coming under particular scrutiny from both left and right has been a key part of Obama’s plan: supporting so-called moderate rebels in Syria. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, appeared to express the bewilderment of many across the political spectrum, saying, “One of the more incoherent aspects of the president’s speech tonight was when he suggested the answer here is to arm rebels in Syria now.” He explained, “For more than a year, the president...

As President Obama continues to openly state U.S. ground troops on Iraq to combat terror army ISIS are not an option, a number of top military commanders have openly criticized or questioned his strategy, both in the press and in congressional testimony. Now we can add former head of the Marine Corps, General James Conway, to a long and growing list. Speaking at the Maverick PAC Conference in Washington D.C. last week, Conway didn't hold back or mince words about how he views current strategy against ISIS. The Daily Caller has the story: “I don’t think the president’s plan has a snowball’s...

Those people who say that President Obama has no clear vision and no clear strategy for dealing with the Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East may be mistaken. It seems to me that he has a very clear and very consistent strategy. And a vision behind that strategy. First, the strategy — which is to get each crisis off the front pages and off television news programs as quickly as he can, in whatever way he can, at the lowest political cost. Calling the Islamic State junior varsity months ago accomplished that goal. Saying before the 2012 elections that...

Obama’s “we-don’t-have-a-strategy” gaffe was so egregious as to distract attention from the fact that he does indeed have a strategy, which has blown up in his face. His strategy is accommodation with Iran at all costs. As I wrote earlier this month, our ISIS problem derives from our Iran problem: Bashar Assad’s ethnic cleansing, which has displaced 4 million Syrians internally and driven 3 million out of the country, was possible because of Iranian backing. The refugee flood in Iraq and Syria gives ISIS an unlimited pool of recruits. Iraqi Sunni support for ISIS, including the participation of some of...

Barack Obama’s emphatic and repeated promise not to deploy new American combat forces in Iraq now appears to have put the president into an extremely awkward and possibly indefensible position. Reports from various news sources show that Obama’s limited air campaign against ISIS has failed to stop the aggressive onslaught by the terror organization. And number of military experts have recently criticized the president’s “no boots on the ground” approach as anemic and ineffective. A senior government official in Iraq is now claiming that up to 10,000 armed fighters for the Islamic State are amassed at the very gates of Baghdad, poised to...

President Obama 'knows' how to handle Putin's 'continuation' - more sanctions (and costs for Europe) - but when it comes to beating the most "barbaric" terrorists known as ISIS, ISIL, or The Islamic State; he had this to offer... "I don't want to put the cart before the horse. We don't have a strategy yet." Rest assured Americans - who have been told that ISIS could be crossing the borders every day and a constant threat, President Obama is 'working on it'. Perhaps most crucially, while we 'joke' that the administration has no strategy, it is noteworthy that Obama stated...

President Barack Obama addressed Americans Wednesday night increasingly concerned about the threat Islamic State militants are posing in the Middle East and about their commander in chief's ability to face it. In his prime time address, the president reminded people of the uniquely brutal character of ISIS. "They execute captured prisoners," he said. "They kill children. They enslave, rape and force women into marriage. They threaten a religious minority with genocide." Despite the militant's name, the president told Americans, "ISIL is not 'Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslim."...

Rush said that 2 weeks ago Obama proudly stated, "We don't have a strategy" for defeating ISIS and prior to that they were the JV team, and prior to that Iraq was settled, it was secure and we could get out of there. Now all of a sudden President Obama has a plan to defeat ISIS which he called a cancer. Rush fired back at the open of his show today calling Obama's strategy 'a joke' that was 'purely political'

Via Ace, who notes that this is part of a broader “Morning Joe” narrative lately that imagines Obama as some sort of warrior-poet whose endless golfing and fundraising demonstrates imperturbable resolve in the face of terror. Same with the “we don’t have a strategy” line at yesterday’s press conference. Maybe that was just a Clausewitzian ploy contrived to get ISIS to lower its guard before O rolls out his devastating, multi-point plan to tighten the noose. It’s possible.Also possible: This guy really doesn’t have a strategy. His remarks came after days of heated debate inside the top levels of...

ISIS has released a video in which American journalist Steven Sotloff is beheaded. It appears to be the work of the same individual with the British accent responsible for beheading James Foley last month.

....Obama wants to decide by the end of the week whether or not his war in Iraq against the Islamic State will expand to the group’s haven in eastern Syria. But nearly everything about the potential military campaign is still in flux, administration officials tell The Daily Beast—from the goals of the effort to the intelligence needed to carry it out.....

Q&A during Obama's NATO Press Conference. Guardian Reporter & Obama. Q: Some Democrats want you to delay action on immigration reform until after the elections. Will you do so? Obama says he has been pretty busy this week, focused on Ukraine and Isis. Fairly soon he will consider what the next steps are. What he is sure is that the US needs immigration reform. The House Republicans have sat on legislation, and delayed for more than a year. In the absence of congressional action, he will act. There is a need for more resources at the border. And he wants...

Last week President Obama admitted that his administration has not worked out a strategy on how to deal with the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a dominant force in the Middle East. However, as ISIS continues its march through Syria and Iraq, many in the US administration believe it is, in the words of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a threat "beyond anything we have ever seen." Predictably, the neocons attacked the president's speech. They believe the solution to any problem is more bombs and troops on the ground, so they cannot understand the president's...

President Obama to Address ISIS Strategy in Speech WASHINGTON — Sep 6, 2014 By JONATHAN KARL President Obama will give a speech next week outlining his strategy for taking on the threat posed by ISIS, ABC News has learned. The president will use the speech to outline the nature of the threat -- serious, but not an imminent threat to the homeland -- and the strategy for confronting it. It is not expected that he will make any major new announcements such as a decision on Syria air strikes, but he will describe the efforts he is already taking, including...

DALLAS - Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, wasted little time pouncing on President Obama's "we don't have a strategy yet" comments about removing the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East, accusing the White House of "dithering and debating" the threat posed by the violent militant faction. "Yesterday, the president admitted he had no strategy to deal with ISIS," Perry said in remarks Friday at a summit put on by Americans for Prosperity, an influential conservative organization backed by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. "The deepening chaos in Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and Ukraine is...

Voters regard the radical Islamic terrorist group ISIS as a major threat to the United States and are very worried that President Obama doesn’t have a strategy for dealing with the problem. They remain reluctant to send U.S. troops back to Iraq to take on ISIS, but support is growing. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% of Likely U.S. Voters consider the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) a serious threat to this country. Just 13% disagree, while another 20% are not sure. (To see survey questions wording, click here.) The president said last week...

This might sound strange to regular NewsBusters readers, but what Chris Matthews said tonight makes sense. His critique of President Obama's ISIS strategy was simple . . . and devastating. Yes, we can bomb from the air. But since President Obama has ruled out American boots on the ground, we'll have to rely on foreign partners on to hold territory. And there's no way we can rely on the dismantled likes of the Free Syrian Army or other non-existent forces. And so, admitted Matthews, he's a "skeptic" about the potential for success of President Obama's plan. View the video here.