https://youtube.com/watch?v=kbMlwXoEjN0
Rudy Giuliani said Monday that President Obama will eventually violate his “no boots on the ground” pledge as the United States battles the Islamic State in Iraq, calling it “another red line” that the president will again ignore once circumstances change.
The former New York City mayor and once-aspiring candidate for president spoke with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the White House’s strategy to combat the jihadist threat in Iraq and Syria. While largely agreeing with the president’s plan, Giuliani expressed skepticism over his insistence that no American ground troops will be put into harm’s way.
“I would never have said, ‘We’re not gonna put boots on the ground,’” he said. “I never would announce that in advance.”
“You don’t think he should send U.S. combat forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria, do you?” Blitzer asked.
“He has,” Guiliani replied, laughing. “But who knows what they’re doing. I think the fact is, before this is over, we’re going to have some troops there. . . . When you listen to General Dempsey, and you listen to his people, they seem to be pushing him in that direction.”
“This is like the mistake he made with the red line,” he added, referencing Obama’s broken promise to strike Syrian dictator Bashar Assad should he use chemical weapons. Though Assad gassed hundreds of his own people in the summer of 2013, at the last minute the White House decided to forgo a military response.