Hillary Clinton on Thursday gave President Obama a pass for a dismissive remark he made in early 2014 that the Islamic State was the junior varsity squad of the terrorism world.
"I don’t think it’s useful to go back and re-plow old ground," Clinton said when asked if the president had underestimated the terror group.
"I think there has been an evolution in their threat and we have to meet it," Clinton said.
For more than a year, President Obama downplayed the threat that IS posed to the U.S. and the Middle East. Obama likened the terrorist group to a "jayvee team" in January 2014, and didn’t draft a strategy to deal with the group until September. Last week, Obama said the Islamic State had been "contained" by pressure from U.S. airstrikes and our partners on the ground.
Clinton’s comment indicates she is not trying to break with the president’s foreign policy record—a record she is partially responsible for, serving as Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
Clinton is vulnerable on questions about the Islamic State, given her pivotal role in selling the administration’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.
The week after President Obama declared an end to the Iraq War, Clinton promoted the pullout in the media. Clinton said the withdrawal was "appropriate given the development of the Iraqi security forces." The Iraqi security forces were subsequently steamrolled by the Islamic State during its offensive in northern Iraq in 2014.
Clinton praised other aspects of the "smart power" foreign policy she and the president had designed during her 2011 appearances, including the raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Western intervention in Libya.
"His kind of smart leadership in a complex world is paying off," Clinton said.
Full transcript below:
FAREED ZAKARIA: Do you believe that President Obama underestimated ISIS when he called it the JV team?
HILLARY CLINTON: I don’t think it’s useful to go back and re-plow old ground. I think from the perspective of what they had accomplished at that time—even though they had seized and held territory—, the major focus of our government was on trying to remove Assad from power so there could be a resolution, a political resolution. There were so many groups fighting, so many other factors at work. Now that ISIS has made clear—in part because they have been pushed hard by the airstrikes, by the Kurds—, they’re now expanding their reach so they can keep their propaganda going. So I think there has been an evolution in their threat and we have to meet it.