Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations urged U.S. military action in Iraq and Syria to combat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), arguing that we are no longer able to distinguish between the two if we hope to destroy ISIL.
"We've been doing very little for the last couple of years to help the Syrian rebels. That's really got to get going if we are going to have the kind of impact we all want to have," Abrams told Bloomberg's Olivia Sterns.
Abrams said he believes airstrikes in Syria are necessary.
"The Islamic State has obliterated completely the border between Iraq and Syria. It just doesn't exist in the real world," said Abrams. "And our own military is saying it is one theater military. The Iraq-Syrian theater."
"So if we say we're only going to strike on one side, we are just defining Syria as a safe haven and base for the Islamic State," he argued. "That's crazy."