The morning after he appeared on multiple MSNBC and NBC programs to rip President Obama’s handling of ISIS, NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel joined the Friday panel of MSNBC’s Morning Joe to continue his streak of tearing into the President for a “confused” and “self-contradictory” plan that “fights itself.”
Also participating in the critiquing of the Obama administration was Richard Haas of the Council on Foreign Relations, who repeatedly emphasized the need for the U.S. to explore a “plan B” and “alternative strategy” considering the way in which ISIS has swept across Iraq and Syria.
A few segments prior to Engel’s arrival, Haas told co-hosts Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist, and Joe Scarborough that the administration needs to recognize the fact that, in Iraq, the Iraqi government has been ineffective and thus contributed to the large swaths coming under ISIS control and thus:
[T]he place we thought we had them on the run, Iraq, momentum has now switched the other way. So, this is time, seriously, to go back to basics cause this is working and these guys are not going to stop there. This is – when they call themselves, again, the caliphate, they’re interested in the entire region and places like Saudi Arabia and the rest are not immune.
When pressed by Scarborough as to what the “cost of inaction” is for the U.S. and the region, Haas cautiously maintained that “[w]e have got to think seriously about an alternative strategy.”
Once Engel joined the roundtable, Geist asked him for his thoughts on comments made in the previous two days by both the President and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest about ISIS and to define what “the truth” is “about how the American strategy is or isn’t working.”
Engel first prefaced his full answer by citing the importance of “answer[ing] the first question” in “[w]hat is the American strategy.” As for his full answer, Engel began by simply ruling that “it’s really all over the place,” “confused” and “at times, self-contradictory.”
He then continued on that theme and went through numerous examples of current conflicts in the Middle East and the Obama administration’s so-called plan in each case:
It fights itself. I mean, Bashar Al Assad. Do we back him? Are we against him? Iran, are we with Iran? Are we again? And it really depends on the day, it depends on the place. In Iraq, the U.S. is sometimes giving air support to Iranian backed-militias in Iraq and in Yemen, the U.S. is backing Saudi Arabia fighting against Iranian backed militias. So, the policy seems to be really kind of all over the place.
If you peruse the coverage of Engel on NewsBusters, you’ll find that not all of his reporting has consisted of blasting the current administration, but instead contains numerous examples of harsh words for the Bush administration and Israel over the years.
However, for the time being, the most recent target for NBC’s chief foreign correspondent has undoubtedly been the Obama administration and what he sees as a lost and feckless strategy for combating the Islamic extremist group.
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Morning Joe on April 22 are transcribed below.
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
May 22, 2015
6:07 a.m. Eastern
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS’s RICHARD HAAS: Well, also, they want to control most of the Middle East. When they say they call themselves the caliphate, that’s not just verbiage. That’s real. Look, we have not had a strategy in Syria and that’s hard to come up with for various reasons, but we thought, administration thought we had a strategy in Iraq and I think what we're seeing increasingly exposed is that we don’t. The partner, on whom our strategy is premised, which is the Iraqi government, isn't a partner. So, either you got to believe sooner rather than later it will become a partner or the administration to go to plan B, but this is not working. ISIS controls, what, half of Syria? Again, the place we thought we had them on the run, Iraq, momentum has now switched the other way. So, this is time, seriously, to go back to basics cause this is working and these guys are not going to stop there. This is – when they call themselves, again, the caliphate, they’re interested in the entire region and places like Saudi Arabia and the rest are not immune.
(....)
SCARBOROUGH: We see it in Syria over two years is over 100,000 people were killed. We had that debate here in real time. What's the cost of inaction, real inaction here? We talked to Dexter Filkins yesterday. Basically, the great war correspondent said you're not going to really move anything there until the U.S. makes a bigger commitment.
HAAS: Well, it's not just the U.S. It’s others, but the cost of inaction is that these people keep gaining territory, because it's a momentum play. They gain recruits. They gain money. People in the Sunni world, in particular, side with them if they sense this is the future and if the only alternative is bringing in shia militias backed by Iran, most Sunnis are going to say, “I'd rather go with radical Sunni militias or ISIS than I would to put my fate in the hands of Shia bacd by Iran. Again, we don't have a partner out in Syria. The partner we thought we had in Iraq, the Iraqi government, isn't a partner. We have got to think seriously about an alternative strategy.
(....)
6:47 a.m. Eastern
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, I just want to ask you, Richard, about the argument that we've heard the White House even up until yesterday that ISIS is on the defensive. That’s quote the President made in an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg. We heard Josh Earnest, the press secretary, saying we can’t light our hair on fire every time another city falls. You’ve been on the ground in all of these places. You know it as well as anyone. What is the truth about how the American strategy is or isn’t working against ISIS?
ENGEL: Well, I think to answer that, you have to answer the first question: What is the American strategy? And I think it's really all over the place. It seems confused. It seems, at times, self contradictory. It fights itself. I mean, Bashar Al Assad. Do we back him? Are we against him? Iran, are we with Iran? Are we again? And it really depends on the day, it depends on the place. In Iraq, the U.S. is sometimes giving air support to Iranian backed-militias in Iraq and in Yemen, the U.S. is backing Saudi Arabia fighting against Iranian backed militias. So, the policy seems to be really kind of all over the place.
