Unlike Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta probably won’t be settling his differences with President Obama with a hug.
Mr. Panetta this week became the latest former top adviser to train some political friendly fire on Mr. Obama, unleashing a devastating critique of the president’s shortcomings as a leader and describing him as someone who “avoids the battle, complains and misses opportunities.”
In interviews to promote a new memoir, the former Democratic congressman, CIA director and Pentagon chief also took issue with Mr. Obama’s military strategy, saying the president harmed U.S. credibility by drawing a “red line” against Syria’s use of chemical weapons and then failing to back it up with military force when Syria crossed that line in 2012.
“It was damaging,” Mr. Panetta told Yahoo News. He said Mr. Obama “sent a mixed message, not only to [Syrian leader Bashar Assad], not only to the Syrians, but to the world. And that is something you do not want to establish in the world: an issue with regard to the credibility of the United States to stand by what we say we’re gonna do.”
Specialists on the presidency say it’s unusual, but not unprecedented, for a high-level presidential adviser to criticize his old boss publicly while the president is still in office. Mr. Obama has now been the target of criticism from former aides ranging from Mrs. Clinton, his first-term secretary of state, and former budget director Peter Orszag to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and even longtime political adviser David Axelrod.
Stephen Hess, an analyst at the Brookings Institution who served in four administrations, said it’s especially striking to hear the criticism coming from an aide with Mr. Panetta’s stellar reputation as a “truth-teller.”
