Shifting blame, White House faults war general’s 2014 ISIS assessment as he departs

Army Gen. Lloyd Austin on Wednesday relinquished command of the U.S. forces fighting the Islamic State in Tampa, Florida — as a bit of a sour note hung in the air back in Washington.

President Obama has been consistently criticized for a 2014 comment to The New Yorker magazine that the Islamic State, as it invaded Iraq from Syria, was merely the “jayvee.” In other words, it was not to be taken seriously. Months later, the terrorist army controlled large swaths of Iraq and Syria, forcing Mr. Obama to order a new war.

Then, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Mr. Obama and published a long favorable story this month on the commander-in-chief’s foreign policy views. In the story is this:

“Early in 2014, Obama’s intelligence advisers told him that ISIS was of marginal importance. According to administration officials, General  Lloyd Austin, then the commander of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, told the White House that the Islamic State was ‘a flash in the pan.’ This analysis led Obama, in an interview with The New Yorker, to describe the constellation of jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria as terrorism’s ‘jayvee team.’”

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