President Barack Obama is being unfair to those fighting and those who have died in Iraq by not clarifying his position on the Islamic State (ISIS), says Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush.
ISIS took the city of Ramadi on Sunday and other cities have been falling in Iraq and Syria as well. Appearing Thursday on Fox News Channel's
"On the Record with Greta Van Susteren," Fleischer said Obama should be asking the military for a reanalysis of what is happening in Iraq and what is working.
"With the number of troops we have on the ground, can we accomplish the mission? If not, do we need to increase the number of troops?" he said. "If not, should we just get out and admit it's not America's business anymore?"
But the "middle position" that Obama has taken has put the United States in a bad situation, Fleischer said.
"It's not fair to the military and not fair to those who lost their lives, especially Marines fighting for Ramadi and Fallujah," he said. "We gave a peaceful Iraq over to President Obama, and now we see this."
Rep. Adam Kinzinger told Van Susteren that if the United States does not take leadership in the region the Middle East will "burn." By that, the Illinois Republican said he means $7-a-gallon gasoline, unprotected shipping lanes for the United States, and "watching young children murdered on television."
Oklahoma Rep. James Lankford, appearing on CNN's
"The Situation Room" earlier Thursday, blasted the administration's claims that ISIS is "not winning."
Lankford said he couldn't answer for the White House on whether that meant the United States was winning, but added that if the goal is simply to degrade ISIS, there has been some advancement toward that effort by hitting targets such as American trucks and machine gun nests that ISIS has stolen from the Iraqi army.
"But we seem to be annoying them more than actually slowing them down," Lankford said.
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