Business Insider quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Senior Fellow Frederic C. Hof on the Obama administration’s policy in Syria:
“It looks like the White House would like to blame its critics for its own operational illiteracy,” Frederic Hof, a former special adviser for transition in Syria under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, told Business Insider over email.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other administration employ ‘the devil made me do it’ argument to excuse and explain its own shortcomings.
“In this case a micromanaging White House saddled [the Defense Department] with something dead on arrival due to a lopsided anti-ISIL mission (one that tried to ignore Assad) and crippling vetting requirements,” Hof added, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State, or ISIS.