Al-Jazeera.com :
President Barack Obama has come under renewed criticism over his foreign policy from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers as he wrestled with crises in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Ukraine.
Republican lawmakers on Sunday seized on Obama’s comment earlier this week when he said, “We don’t have a strategy yet” for confronting the Islamic State group, saying it suggested indecisiveness.
Also on Sunday, influential Democrats chimed in with their own critiques of Obama’s foreign policy, chiding him for being “too cautious” on Syria, and urging him to do more to help Ukraine resist Russian advances.
“I’ve learned one thing about this president, and that is he’s very cautious. Maybe, in this instance, too cautious,” Democrat Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told US TV network NBC when asked about Obama’s comments about dealing with Islamic State fighters.
Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, cautioned that any US action in Syria had to be carefully calibrated to avoid inadvertently supporting the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
But he joined Republicans in urging Obama to provide more than just “non-lethal” aid to the Ukrainian government as it resisted Russian forces.
“We should be more forceful when supporting the Ukrainian government,” Smith told CBS TV network. “I think it’s appropriate to up that aid to make them a more capable fighting force, to resist this incursion.”
The critical comments came as the Obama administration faced myriad crises around the world, including a reported attack on an annex to the US embassy in Tripoli, Libya.
In response to the criticism of Obama’s comment on the lack of a strategy, White House officials said it reflected the fact that the Pentagon was still developing options for possible military action in Syria.
