Posted by Tina
POTUS hit the late night comedy stage last night to yuk-it-up with Leno over policy while analysts scratch their heads over the Presidents wide scope approach to embassy closings:
“It’s crazy pants – you can quote me,” said Will McCants, a former State Department adviser on counterterrorism who this month joins the Brookings Saban Center as the director of its project on U.S. relations with the Islamic world.
“We just showed our hand, so now they’re obviously going to change their position on when and where” to attack, said Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who was part of the team that hunted Osama bin Laden for years.
“It’s not completely random, but most people are, like, ‘Whaaat?’ ” said Aaron Zelin, who researches militants for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and blogs about them at Jihadology.net
“I’m not going to argue that it’s not willy-nilly, but it’s hard for me to come down too critical because I simply don’t know their reasoning,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute.
But Eli Lake and Josh Rogin report that it was an intercepted conference call between affiliated operatives and Top Al Qaida leaders that prompted the widespread embassy closings:
The intercept provided the U.S. intelligence community with a rare glimpse into how al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, manages a global organization that includes affiliates in Africa, the Middle East, and southwest and southeast Asia.
Several news outlets reported Monday on an intercepted communication last week between Zawahiri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate based in Yemen. But The Daily Beast has learned that the discussion between the two al Qaeda leaders happened in a conference call that included the leaders or representatives of the top leadership of al Qaeda and its affiliates calling in from different locations, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. All told, said one U.S. intelligence official, more than 20 al Qaeda operatives were on the call.
Regarding the consulate that is perhaps causing overkill concern at these embassies, new information suggests the Benghazi CIA Arms scandal may be bogus. John Hinderacker of Powerline reports that a Congressional source insists the evidence does not point to an arms transfer or prisoner detainee scandal at the consulate…that this charge is a “distraction”…but the source does say there is considerable evidence that Barack Obama, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton’s “light footprint” policy coupled with the Presidents inability to make tough decisions led to the terrible outcome in Benghazi and is a scandal of considerable note.
Cartoonist Glenn McCoy summarizes the Administrations position by drawing the President hiding under his desk in the Oval Office and saying, “I have al Qaida on the run”
We are sending mixed messages and it is difficult to tell at times exactly whose side POTUS is on. He did side with the Muslim Brotherhood and that’s got a whole lot of moderate’s in Egypt upset and protesting in the streets.
Whether we decide this situation is “crazy pants” or simply conclude that our president, who assured us he was competent to take that 3:00 AM phone call, is simply uninvolved it’s pretty clear that most Americans have little confidence in the administration a year after his re-election.