Panetta: Obama sent ‘mixed message’ on role of US in world

Leon Panetta, a former CIA director and Defense secretary under President Obama, criticized Obama in a new interview for hoping other countries would “step up” on the world stage and sending “mixed messages” about the U.S. role. 

Panetta said in an interview with The New York Times that Obama nursed “the hope that perhaps others in the world could step up to the plate and take on these issues.” The result, he added, “was a kind of a mixed message that went out with regard to the role of the United States.”

Panetta has a new book, Worthy Fights, and is the latest former Obama administration official to criticize the president’s handling of Iraq and Syria, arguing the U.S. should have armed Syrian rebels earlier and kept some troops in Iraq. 

The criticism builds on a Panetta interview published Monday with USA Today, in which Panetta said in the last two years Obama has “lost his way.” 

Obama has recently emphasized the exceptional role the U.S. plays in the world. 

“We are the indispensable nation,” Obama said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month. “We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don’t call Beijing. They don’t call Moscow. They call us. That’s the deal.” 

Panetta now sees Obama as improving, however. After what he viewed as indecisiveness on Syria strikes in 2013, Panetta said Obama “is going a long way in terms of repairing some of the damage I think took place as a result of the credibility issue that was raised on Syria.”

Panetta added in the Times interview that relying on Congress’s authorization for force in 2001 for strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not “good enough,” contradicting the White House’s position. 

The Obama administration has said that the 2001 authorization to take action against the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks still applies because ISIS is descended from al Qaeda.  The administration has said it would “welcome” a vote in Congress, but said it does not need one, and has not submitted a formal request for one.

Panetta joins a range of Republicans, and Democrats such as Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), in disagreeing.

“I don’t think it’s good enough now to fall back on what was provided soon after 9/11,” Panetta said .