Compare Jordan and Egypt’s Plan to Defeat ISIS to Obama’s; The Contrast Is Painfully Clear

To make matters worse the Obama administration won’t even support Egypt’s campaign against ISIS in Libya:

The Obama administration was given multiple chances Wednesday to endorse a long-time ally’s airstrikes on America’s biggest enemy at the moment, the so-called Islamic State. Over and over again, Obama’s aides declined to back Egypt’s military operation against ISIS. It’s another sign of the growing strain between the United States and Egypt, once one of its closest friends in the Middle East.

This shouldn’t be a complete surprise; Cairo, after all, didn’t tell Washington about its strikes on the ISIS hotbed of Derna, Libya. Still, Wednesday’s disconnect was jarring. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest passed on a reporter’s question about an endorsement of Egypt’s growing campaign against ISIS. So did State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

“We are neither condemning nor condoning” the Egyptian strikes, is all one U.S. official would tell The Daily Beast.

In other words, these once-close nations are now fighting separate campaigns against their mutual foe. And that could prove to be very good news for ISIS. The rift between U.S. and the region’s most populous country portends of another division that ISIS could exploit, this time for its expansion into northern Africa and the broader Middle East.

U.S. officials privately said they do not have a better idea for confronting the threat and the ongoing strains between the two nations has led to a breakdown of trust.

“The Egyptian military, in particular, is very frustrated with us,” one U.S. government official explained to the Daily Beast. “It is mutual frustration.”