CNN Pentagon Correspondent: Lack of Strategy on ISIS 'Odd,' 'Surprising'

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr said that the president’s declaration that the United States did not have a strategy to defeat ISIS was “a little surprising,” and “a little odd perhaps” on Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead” with Jake Tapper. 

“You have to wonder exactly what message he was sending here today. Let’s be very clear. ISIS heard all of this. So the president of the United States says we have no strategy yet. This is a little surprising,” Starr stated.  

She added that it was “perhaps worth remembering that ISIS fighters, ISIS leadership will hear this statement that the US right now has no strategy to deal with them. I don’t think anybody thought a military strategy was the whole answer, but no strategy? A little odd perhaps.”

Starr also pointed out that Obama’s statement that the United States did not have a strategy was strange considering the ongoing planning done by the Pentagon, saying “the Pentagon has openly acknowledged they are working on military options. Military options to pursue what strategy? There must be something out there, or what are these options the pentagon’s been scribbling away at for weeks now? Where are they really headed? Remember it was Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel just a couple of days ago that said ISIS was like no threat we’ve ever seen. There has been concern about a homeland threat from ISIS down the road, and yet, no strategy to deal with it.”

(h/t RNC Research)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett