Top US Anti-ISIS Diplomat: Biden's Comments 'Immaterial' to ISIS Fight
Obama official is surprised how good ISIS is at getting their message out.
— -- Vice President Joe Biden’s criticism of Gulf nations for funding extremists is not deterring them from helping the United States’ anti-ISIS efforts, Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Rick Stengel, who runs the Obama administration’s counterterrorism communications campaign, said.
“That's pretty much immaterial,” Stengel said in an interview with ABC News. “I think it's rainwater on the ocean.”
Asked whether Biden’s comments were harmful given that Stengel just returned from a trip that took him to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – both countries Biden called out by name in remarks at Harvard University Thursday – Stengel joked that the Vice President wasn’t thinking about the undersecretary’s trip when he made those remarks.
“You think he was thinking about me when he said it?” he asked.
Stengel, who has been in the job since February, said he was surprised by ISIS’ considerable skill in the realm of strategic communications, releasing slick videos and driving consistent messaging among their Twitter followers.
“I don't know the answer to it,” Stengel said when asked how ISIS got so good at messaging. “I've been surprised by how sophisticated they are. It's not as sophisticated as first-world media messaging, and they're not trying to reach that audience. They're trying to reach disaffected young men, unhappy young men, people without jobs.”
“But one of the things we start to do is how to combat that in real-time, how to combat the enlistment of foreign fighters, how to combat the ideology of young men who might be susceptible to that.”