Frederic C. Hof
Tuesday, June 9, 2015 - 10:41
Frederic C. Hof, Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center, delivered an address on June 8 to an audience at the NATO Defense College in Rome. His remarks considered the problem facing the United States and President Barack Obama on how to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL). Without a shift in US policy to address the problem in both Iraq and Syria—and soon—the anti-ISIS coalition may find itself fighting the same battles against a much more entrenched extremist group. Please read excerpts of his remarks below.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015 - 08:12
Ambassador Frederic C. Hof states in the report that train and equip program for Syria needs to be put on steroids. To do so efficiently will require secure areas in Syria protected from regime air attacks and from ground attacks mounted by the regime, ISIL, and other extremists. This will require American leadership; not American boots on the ground.
Friday, November 14, 2014 - 04:57
At Andrews Joint Base on March 14, 2014 President Barack Obama told visiting uniformed defense chiefs that a key aspect of destroying the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, also known as ISIL and the Islamic State) would be the promotion of moderate, legitimate governance inside Syria; governance that would ultimately be extended to all Syrians. On November 7, 2014 the White House published its strategy for "degrading and ultimately defeating ISIL:" nine lines of effort to that end. Which of the nine addressed the all-important element of moderate, legitimate governance in Syria? None. What is going on here?
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - 07:34
Early indications suggest that the administration's longstanding bias toward minimal effort on Syria—a bias reinforced and sustained politically by widespread public indifference—remains essentially in place.