Thread by @pleasesaveour

Obama feared that if he took tough countermeasures against Moscow’s cyberwarriors it might “prompt the Russians to recoil or to step up their election interference campaign making matters worse.” Obama was cautious to the point of being intimidated it seem
washingtonpost.com/outlook/former…

But Brennan, who shied at the idea that the CIA’s job was “stealing secrets,” assumed an increasingly large role in the government’s killing machine. While he was Obama’s homeland security adviser from January 2009 to December 2015, he writes, Obama approved 473 strikes that

killed between 2,372 and 2,581 enemy combatants and between 64 and 116 civilians. (The civilian toll seems very low, relative to estimates by human rights organizations, but Brennan claims it’s accurate.)

During those years, Brennan had regular contact with VP Joe Biden. In his view, Biden was wrong to advocate for a withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and wrong about the raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden. (Biden favored a missile attack rather than a helicopter raid.)

But he was right to warn Obama about the consequences of drawing a “red line” against chemical weapons in Syria, telling the president, “Big nations can’t bluff.”

Obama bluffed unfortunately