Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) repeated his criticism of President Obama’s Syria policy on Monday, saying the U.S. must do more to end that country’s civil war and defeat the Islamic State (IS, also ISIS or ISIL).
"The president laid out four points in his speech last week from the Oval Office about what he's doing to fight ISIS, why he thinks it's working. Do you think we need to do more?" Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist asked Kaine.
"I think we’ve got to do more," Kaine said.
"There are three interlocking problems: the war against ISIL, the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II in Syria, and the Syrian civil war. They all connect, and in each one you’ve got to do a little bit more," Kaine said.
Kaine called on Congress to authorize military force against IS. To this point, the Obama administration has used the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force to justify its limited military campaign against IS, but questions have been raised about that bill’s applicability to ISIS.
Kaine also recommended the U.S. impose a no-fly zone over northern Syria that could be used as a safe zone for civilians. Kaine said this policy should have been implemented in 2013, when the Obama administration flinched from enforcing its red line against chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime.
"We made a mistake by not doing the no-fly zone in northern Syria. We could have done it two years ago, probably would’ve stopped two million people from leaving. We can still do it and it will still have an effect," Kaine said.
Kaine has ramped up his criticism of the Obama administration and Congress in recent weeks.
He called the decision not to create a no-fly zone "one of the big mistakes we’ve made" in Syria, and said the U.S. "doesn’t have a policy for what’s going on in Syria other than writing a check to support humanitarian aid."
Obama is expected to make a rare visit to the Pentagon later on Monday, in part to address mounting criticism of his response to a spree of ISIS-linked terrorist attacks against the West.
The Obama administration’s stated goal is the destruction of ISIS, but the rough consensus of experts is that it has not devoted the resources necessary to accomplish that goal.
More broadly, the U.S. is meeting with a number of countries in Vienna to negotiate an end to the Syrian Civil War, although the stakeholders have very different priorities and objectives.
While countries like the U.S. seek to support moderate Syrian rebels and remove dictator Bashar al-Assad from power, others like Russia and Iran have waged war against rebel groups to ensure Assad’s survival.