Posted by lex, on March 11th, 2011
Seeing the tree.
Q: Hey, it’s actually Jake Tapper. Just, Tom, if you could comment on — DNI Clapper on the Hill today was asked a couple questions that raised eyebrows, one of which was, he said that the — Libya is a stalemate back and forth, but I think, over the longer term, the regime will prevail. … And I was just wondering if you could comment.
Mr. DONILON: Well … I guess I’d answer — I would answer — I would answer it this way: that if you did a static and one-dimensional assessment of just looking at order of battle and mercenaries, right, you came come to various conclusions about the various advantages that the Gadhafi regime and the opposition has.
But our view is — my view is — as the person who looks at this quite closely every day and advises the president, is that things in the Middle East right now and things in Libya in particular right now need to be looked at not through a static, but a dynamic, and not through a unidimensional but a multidimensional lens. And if you look at it in that way, beyond a narrow view, right, on just kind of numbers of weapons and things like that, you get a very different picture.
I’m beginning to think that the DNI – who only last month labeled the Muslim Brotherhood a “secular” organization – ought to use a spokesman for his presentations to the press.
To the president too, for that matter.
