While appearing on Sunday’s edition of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., accused Barack Obama of “emboldening the Taliban” by telegraphing strategy and announcing exit dates.
Rubio said he thought former Defense Secretary Robert Gates should have waited until Obama was out of office to release his scathing memoir, but he excoriated the president for his policies, which he said were driven by politics.
“You saw that reflected in the decision that (Obama) made,” Rubio told CBS. “At the same time that he announced the surge, he also announced an exit date and strategy, thereby emboldening the Taliban to believe they could wait us out.”
“Our allies see us as unreliable and our enemies feel emboldened,” he added. “I think that this confirms our worst fears, that this is an administration that lacks a strategic foreign policy and, in fact, is largely driven by politics and tactics.”
Rubio’s criticism wasn’t confined to the president.
“This is an administration full of people that either have the wrong convictions, or, in the case of former Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, lacked the courage of her convictions,” he said.
In his memoir, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War,” Gates skewers the Obama administration, saying that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”
Rubio’s comments also comes on the heels of a statement made by retired Air Force General Tom McInerney, who said the Muslim Brotherhood is “in the U.S. government today.”
Gen. McInerney praised Gates for releasing his memoir, and said it should have been released earlier.
Rubio, The Blaze said, is “widely expected to launch a bid for the White House in 2016.”
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- Allen West: Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated Obama administration
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- President Obama Linked to Muslim Brotherhood
- Op-ed says Obama should be impeached over Benghazi, abuses of power
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