From The Huffington Post:
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan blamed the Obama administration Tuesday for contributing to the circumstances that led to the swift ascent of the Islamic State, a militant group that purportedly beheaded a second American journalist in two weeks. Ryan had been taking questions from a panel of reporters during a Milwaukee luncheon when he was asked to respond to a news report that journalist Steven Sotloff had been beheaded. The congressman asked the several hundred people in the audience to observe a moment of silence, and then suggested that the Islamic State’s rise to power coincided with a series of Obama missteps.
“I do think a good deal of this rise stem(s) from bad decisions made by the administration in foreign policy with respect to Syria and Iraq,” Ryan said, adding, “Those decisions created a vacuum which is now being filled by ISIS,” a reference to the Islamic State. Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee and was the Republicans’ 2012 vice presidential candidate, is better known for focusing on budget issues and domestic policy than on foreign affairs. But he said he reads intelligence reports and has been getting regular briefings about the Islamic State.
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