Backs Clinton

Panetta disputes Bush’s take on Islamic State, backs Clinton

By Carla Marinucci

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has disputed Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s charge that Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama are largely responsible for the rise of the group Islamic State, even as he expressed concern that the administration needs “a larger strategy on how to deal with the Middle East.”

On Tuesday in a foreign policy speech at the Reagan Library, Bush said the United States’ “premature withdrawal” from Iraq was a “fatal error” that created a void filled by the Islamic State, sometimes known as ISIS. He called for a stronger military response to the extremist militant group, which has taken control of parts of Syria and Iraq.

While “I don’t want to call it naive,” Panetta insisted later Tuesday that the former Florida governor glossed over a complex challenge and that the real fault lay with former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who Panetta said did a poor job of protecting his country after the U.S. left.

“Not to say that the U.S. could not have brought more pressure on al-Maliki — we should have,” Panetta said.

“What happened once we withdrew our forces there is that we didn’t pay attention as closely to what was going on there.”

Panetta, a widely respected former public official with experience in two administrations — he also served as CIA director under Obama and as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and director of the office of Budget and Management — now heads the Panetta Institute for Public Policy at Cal State Monterey Bay.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Chronicle, he spoke about key issues facing the country, including the Iran nuclear deal and the 2016 presidential candidates.

Panetta endorsed Clinton in her bid for the presidency and said that he will provide her with advice.

“This country is badly divided; Washington is dysfunctional,” he said. “We really need a president who is a healer, not a divider. Hillary Clinton can provide that kind of leadership. She has that capability.”

Panetta also expressed concern about U.S. policies and how they are impacting the geopolitical tinderbox that is the Middle East.

“Frankly, it would have been better if we had retained a presence” in Iraq, he said. “The bigger issue here is that the president and the White House really do need a larger strategy on how to deal with the Middle East.”

“It isn’t just ISIS ... it’s the whole Arab Spring turning to shreds, Libya fighting itself, Egypt fighting (Islamist extremists) in the Sinai,” and Palestinians fighting Israelis, he said.

In the face of such political volatility, “the problem is that if the U.S. doesn’t provide leadership there, nobody else will,” he said.

On the Iran nuclear deal, he said that “while it falls short of what ... we had hoped for, in terms of a more permanent dismantlement of the nuclear infrastructure, at least some constraints are better than no constraints. At least it gives us the opportunity, in the short term, for preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.’’

Panetta also weighed in on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, calling him a political “air horn” who has lent little of substance to the contest.

“It’s noise, and he’s capturing all the attention ... but what he’s saying is really, in terms of substance, outrageous,” Panetta said. Labeling immigrants from Mexico as “rapists” and criminals, he said, is “not how a leader of this country ought to be dealing with these challenges.”