President Obama’s actions against terrorist groups and dictators don’t live up to the hype, Chuck Todd said Friday on Morning Joe.
"The problem with the president’s policy," Todd said, "is that the policy doesn’t match the rhetoric. The rhetoric is ‘destroy ISIS,’ but the policy they’ve implemented is ‘containment.’ It’s not a destruction policy."
Islamic State, the terrorist group that swept across Iraq after U.S. forces pulled out of the country in 2011, has become a major campaign topic after its recent seizure of Ramadi. Pundits and politicians have been apportioning blame for the terrorist group’s rise ever since.
Todd and host Joe Scarborough agreed that the president’s rhetoric has not been matched by a strong foreign policy. "Isn’t it interesting that the president has always rhetorically overreached?" Scarborough observed. "He has said Assad must go, Gadhafi must go, everybody must go—"
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad remains in power despite a repeated U.S. commitment to replace him with a less brutal leader.
Todd said the president should "sell" his policy of containment if he wasn’t going to back up tough talk with action. "It’s almost as if he’s afraid to sell the idea of containment."
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg also reminded the audience about Obama's comments on Iran never having any nuclear program whatsoever.