right now we re offering air support and drone strikes. that s not working. isis is actually gaining territory. it s not just an iraq problem. iraq s home base is in syria. we have punitive allies who don t believe us and don t trust us and are now trying to litigate this war against isis themselves. i think what american people are looking for is leadership and that has been lacking with this president. it s not just when you say leadership like i know what you re talking about. you re talking about president obama. but tell me what effective leadership looks like when it comes to syria, the problems there, and in yemen and in iraq and problem with iran. it s getting more and more difficult as time passes and as isis gains ground. we know in the beginning of syria, isis was just a small force there but they are most effective fighters so syrians fighting against bashar al assad
and didn t, that line was drawn and we didn t do anything. as a result our allies as i said don t trust us and our foes don t fear or respect us. it is emboldening the criminal and terrorist elements to move forward and be more emboldened as you referenced. senator, what do you think about the battle between those who have privacy concerns, civil liberties concerns versus those who feel like you know what? this is time to have all-out counterterrorism strategy and these things need to take a back seat? i wonder if you think those things will be play a royal in the presidential race. i have many conversations with senator paul on that very issue. he is on one side of the spectrum and other candidates and senators are on the other side. frankly think it s a balance. we not only need to protect our rights and freedoms to be americans and freedom of theress ourself but make sure we have the right to live and not be killed. we have to strike that balance by protecting those rights but m
and today our allies just don t trust us. our military is weak. iranian iranian hedge mommy is going forward. in iraq, in ways we have not seen. if we had a bush-cheney administration for another eight years, do you think we would not have seen the growth of isis and collapse of the middle east as we know it? no, i don t. because i think when president obama withdrew those last troops from iraq, he created a vacuum. isis filled that vacuum. if we had stayed there, supported the baghdad government and inclusive baghdad government that included kurds, sunnis, i don t think isis would have ever reached this point. i think it s because of that weakness. we saw these dictators fall. and there s a real question about whether that wound up being a good thing for america. i think we made a hideous mistake in telling mubarak who was our ally in egypt for 20 years to leave immediately when more intelligent voices were saying let s look for a
trying to hammer out with iran that this is going to create a very short pathway for iran to get nuclear weapons. all of it weakens america. but, you know, the president s defenders would look at dick cheney and say bush-cheney got us into forget afghanistan but at least iraq based on what they say was a false premise. and they believe that created a new field of enemies against us in the middle east and we re still paying that debt. megyn it s not about the past. it s about today and the future. and today our allies just don t trust us. our military is weak. iranian iranian hedge mommy is going forward. in iraq, in ways we have not seen. if we had a bush-cheney administration for another eight years, do you think we would not have seen the growth of isis and collapse of the middle east as we know it? no, i don t. because i think when president obama withdrew those last troops from iraq, he created a vacuum. isis filled that vacuum. if we had stayed there,
the president was touting success in actuallity it s been a failure. it sends a very important message that our allies that don t trust us and they can t trust us. when something like this happens, we re nowhere to be seen. it s going to take more than obviously drone strikes. all options need to be on the table. they took them off the table. my question to many people who are people in office, what if air strikes don t work? what then? will there be an opportunity have an all above approach. if you re the government of saudi arabia jordan uae. you name it. all countries that aren t esley aligned with the united states and you have internal problems. boy, they all do. some of these governments precariously balanced between the lunatic forces in the region. you would think they would look to the united states for support. obama administration will not come to the aid of the friends.