Testifying for the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, former Gen. David Petraeus, credited with the success of the Surge campaign in Iraq during the Bush administration, warned of the growing threat from ISIS in the Middle East.
His comments, which carried with them an assumption of mismanagement of U.S. efforts against ISIS, came in the form of stark analogy in which he likened the increasing role of destabilization in Syria to a “geopolitical Chernobyl”.
He recommended that U.S. involvement in the region include increased “airpower” and potentially boots on the ground in Iraq in order to re-establish American influence.
He warned that the vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal of troops has allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin to press ahead with his goal to “resurrect the Russian empire.”
