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In an interview with The Times of London President-elect Donald Trump addressed the situation in the Middle East.
Trump was asked by Michael Gove and Kai Diekmann what he thought about the situation in Iraq where the U. S.-backed Iraqi army together with Iranian-backed Shiite militias are having trouble re-conquering Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city that has been under the control of the Islamic State since late 2014.
Trump called the situation in Mosul “a disaster” and blamed the lack of progress since the offensive against the Islamic State began in the middle of October on Obama officials who announced the offensive against ISIS in Mosul four months before it actually started.
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When asked how he would handle the war against ISIS in Iraq Trump answered:
“Why do you have to announce it?” Trump added.
“What’s going to be your priority? When are you going to attack? When are you gonna, how are you gonna do it? What kind of weapons are you gonna use, right? What time of the day?” the President-elect continued.
By the time the coalition against ISIS got into Mosul it had become very hard to retake the city Trump said.
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Trump also addressed the situation in Syria and said Putin’s intervention in the country in September 2015 was “a very bad thing.”
“It’s a very bad thing, we had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand and it wasn’t — nothing happened,” Trump told The Times, referencing Obama’s failure to enforce his own red line of using force against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad after he used chemical weapons against civilians.
“That was the only time — and now, it’s sort of very late. It’s too late. Now everything is over — at some point it will come to an end,” Trump claimed before addressing the fall of Aleppo last month.
“Aleppo was nasty.
