Is Hillary Clinton One of Those "Folks" Who "Want to Pop Off"?

Op-Ed by Andre Ash/Special to Tell Us Detroit

DETROIT, MI (Tell Us Det) - "If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan."

Those are the words echoed by President Obama's Q&A moment with international journalists Monday at the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey.

The President sharply defended his strategy in fighting ISIS. His stunning remark which is gaining social media traction can be seen as a rebuke to republican criticism. However, Obama's comment might also be reserved for his democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton.

Behind President Obama's remarks is a huge divide brewing between the President and his former Secretary of State on his strategy inside Syria and his fight to ISIS which Clinton doesn't believe is good enough.

In an interview last Friday with ABC News, before the Paris terrorist attacks, for which the extremist terror group claimed responsibility, President Obama stated ISIS was "contained" inside Iraq and Syria.

In the televised democratic debate on Saturday night, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stated, "ISIS cannot be contained, but, destroyed". Seemingly taking a jab at the Commander in Chief's recent remarks.

Clinton also supports a no-fly zone in Syria where the U.S. led coalition and Russian planes have taken up airspace. The notion of a no-fly zone was struck down by Obama on Monday when reporters asked about that particular idea which even some republican presidential candidates are calling for as well.

Four years ago President Obama went against Secretary Clinton and his political and military advisors as they suggested supporting the Syrian people who rose up to their dictator.

The civil war grew worse and ISIS entered the vacuum from Iraq as Syria's President Bashar al-Assad continued to attack and kill thousands of his people with chemical bombs from the air.

President Obama announced publicly some short years ago that Assad "must go". Today, he remains in power with military support from Russian President Vladimir Putin who believes Assad was fighting terrorist elements.

Riding his campaign legacy of the President to end our wars and steadily choking the terrorist ambitions of al-Qaeda, in an interview during the summer of 2014, Obama's assessment of ISIS was of a "JV team". Today, that team seems to have excelled to the major leagues.

On the heels of ISIS gaining recruitment, money, territory, and attention as it slaughtered the head of an American journalist and others including homosexuals, Christians, and other innocent victims, the U.S. stepped up.

In late 2014, President Obama announced a strategy to "degrade and defeat" ISIS with ally nations and partners on an air bombing campaign while training and equipping Syrians on the ground to be the eyes and ears for air targets and offensive ground operations. The latter failed when the U.S. military could only muster four or five recruits several months deep into the strategy. The mission to train and equip a force of 5,000 by year's end was scraped by the White House three months ago, a program reportedly costing American tax payers nearly $400 million.

Why didn't that part of the strategy succeed? Political observer's will say that the Syrians main fight, was their Syrian dictator, not ISIS, although Washington knew Assad remaining in power wasn't the answer for peace and stability in Syria neither.

So when it comes to the U.S. playing a role now to support and arm the Syrian people, it's a phrase that can be inserted that, American help came "a day late and a dollar short".

Clinton and advisors urged President Obama to engage years ago. The President declined, fearing the unintended consequences of arms getting into the wrong hands.
The irony? A reversal in policy of Obama wanting to vet out and arm a Syrian opposition force fours years later and barely getting any takers to sign up as the situation on the ground has gotten worse.

The reluctance to get involved in Syria early on has now come full circle for President Obama. He's forced to combat ISIS in Syria on the ground with the utilization of U.S. Special forces, work to find a political solution to still force Assad out of power, and how to deal with an humanitarian crisis as millions of refugees leave their Syrian homeland.

The array of the multiple complexities in the Middle-East weren't boiling over just four years ago as they are now and Clinton knows it. She campaigns that'll she'll be tough in the fight against terrorism and argues more must be done to destroy ISIS.

Does Clinton have a more aggressive approach than Obama in fighting terrorism? It's the foreign policy divide that's brewing between the former democratic presidential rivals both privately and publicly.