Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd pushed back on Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly “pleading for patience,” when looking for any results from the Obama administrations strategy against ISIS.
Kerry insisted, “There is a lot more to do. We have said since the beginning this is a long term operation, not a short term one. We believe everything including the governing process in Iraq itself is moving in the right direction.”
After being shown a clip of a Kurdish official saying he has seen no progress Kerry said, “You heard the key word there which was not quickly, but he said over time it could work. We have said consistently that this is going to take a certain amount of time. Why? Is that because we want it to take time? No. The fact is that the Iraqi army itself needs to be retrained and stood up. There has to be ground troops involved in order to win this victory. It’s clear they are not going to be American, British, French or European. They are going to be Iraqi.”
Todd questioned Kerry “pleading for patience,” to which Kerry replied, “There are a lot of reasons for how we got to where we are today. What we need to understand is that we have moved from instant one, to buttress Iraq, to build a coalition. People were astonished we were able to get five Sunni nations to join us in taking on the challenge of Syria. I think we have put together a strong coalition. I just don’t but into that.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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