for the large truck careens through crowds of tourists a crowded cafe kills at least 30 people in belgium. soon they d mount some of the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11. casting a large shadow over obama s presidency. to solve a problem and an even larger one over the presidential election. the way they got out of iraq, the vacuum they ve left, that s why isis formed in the first place. and now they re in 32 different nations, hillary. congratulations. great job. so could president obama have prevented the rise of the islamic state? his critics point to a pivotal decision. leaving iraq with just a handful of troops. his generals had wanted
the ability of isil to initiate major land offenses, that was not on my intelligence radar screen. everyone was stunned. that a few thousand militants swept through iraq and syria sowing fear in the region and the world. chop off the heads of the americans. chop off the heads of the french. chop of the heads of whoever. they created a caliphate. ruled by strict sharia law, meting out punishments in the most barbaric ways imaginable. their philosophy may have been medieval, but they were masters of the internet. come to jihad. brother in islam and syria. i originally come from canada. luring recruits from malaysia to belgium to new jersey. isis claiming responsibility
can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al qaeda s terror, justice has been done. it was the high point of barack obama s presidency. usa! usa! but it proved to be a temporary high. my home sweet home three years later, the united states watched as a new terror group we are going for you, barack obama. more brutal, more radical and more effective than al qaeda swept through syria and iraq, capturing major cities, enslaving local populations, attracting thousands of followers. any attempt by you, obama and beheading americans.
we re here for your freedom. so back up right now. by 2008, the iraq war was seen as america s worst foreign policy debacle since vietnam. in the primary against hillary clinton i was opposed to iraq from the start. senator obama never let voters forget that he had been on the right side of history. i don t want to just end the war, but i want to end the mind-set that got us into the war in the first place. that s the kind of leadership i intend. senator, that s a clear swipe at you. really? i ve come to speak to you about how the war in iraq will end. less than six weeks after he was inaugurated, he told the troops his plans for withdrawal. i intend to remove all u.s. troops from iraq by the end of 2011. god bless the united states of
but the syrian civil war continued. and extremists gained the upper hand. when you have these ungoverned spaces, that s exactly where they like to set up. they can plan, organize, recruit, do training. that s what they need. in 2013, isis took over raqqah. a major city in syria. then they marched into iraq capturing vast swaths of territory. they had effectively created their own nation. an islamic state. over the last two years, isis has been badly squeezed. but the group could still strike any time in the middle east, europe or america. and syria is still in chaos.