US News and World Report quotes Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Frederic Hof on President Obama’s policy toward the conflict in Syria:
“In Syria, with the exception of the chemical atrocities, it’s been the kind of drip-drip-drip magnified by the president’s instinctive belief that the application of military force in Syria could not necessarily make a difference,” says Frederic Hof, who served as Obama’s special adviser for the transition in Syria before joining the Atlantic Council think tank. “[Syria’s] mass homicide program has been very systematic and very incremental.”
Hof criticized his former boss’ handling of Syria in a recent op-ed in Politico. He pointed to the discrepancy between Obama’s dismissing as “fantasy” the chances of preventing the rise of the Islamic State and the U.S. actively supporting the 2011 NATO mission in Libya with the intent, in part, of preventing extremists from taking hold.