Columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted to previous White House statements upholding Yemen as a model of counterterrorism by dubbing it “a hell of a mitigation” on Friday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel.
After seeing clips of President Obama saying that the US’ counterterrorism strategy against ISIS is “one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years” and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claiming “the counterrorism strategy that this administration has put in place to mitigate and deter, to degrade, if you will, the threat that is posed by extremists to the US homeland. There is no doubt that there are local forces on the ground in Yemen that are not American that are taking the fight to extremists in that country,” he stated “that’s a hell of a mitigation coming out of Yemen, the attack that we see in Paris. The fact that Iranian-backed insurgents have taken over large swathes, and essentially displaced the government in Yemen, it is a catastrophe on the Sunni radical front, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and with the Shiite insurgents as well, which is Iran. And it gives you this sort of notion of the other phenomenon, which is the competition among the radicals and the insurgents, this is al Qaeda’s re-emergence today.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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