Washington Post columnist George Will criticized the Obama administration’s decision to involve the U.S. in the Syrian conflict on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, calling the administration’s actions tentative and late in the game.
“Now, he is wrong,” Will said. “Two axioms from two great military leaders — Napoleon said if you start to take Vienna, take Vienna. That is, don’t be tentative whatever else you do and don’t be tardy. Gen. MacArthur said every military debacle can be explained by two words: too late — too late to discern the threat, to prepare for the threat, to respond to the threat.”
Will said that President Barack Obama himself had been absent on the announcement and that his previous statements put him at odds with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in negotiating a resolution.
“This intervention in another nation’s civil war with sectarian overlays and ethnic complications was announced not by the president, not in conjunction with Congress — it was announced by the deputy national security adviser,” Will continued. “This is obviously a reluctant president who now has himself in a competition with the Russians who are all-in supporting the other side. We want to have negotiations. We’re not neutral. The president has said Assad lacks legitimacy and Assad must go. So the negotiations are to negotiate Assad’s departure from power? I don’t think he’s interested.”