Yet for all the vivid rhetoric in recent days, the Obama administration has yet to articulate a clear course of action to dismantle the radical group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, and is struggling to lay out a precise vision to respond to the new threats in chaotic areas of Iraq and Syria where ISIL has thrived in recent months…

And the disconnect between dramatic condemnations and decisive action against ISIL threatens to leave the president looking ineffective or even impotent, just as his call for Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign remains unheeded three years later…

“I’m not saying it is U.S. foreign policy, but the perception of our foreign policy in much of the Middle East is: ‘Don’t do stupid stuff — plus use drones,’” Harman told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum in July. “I don’t think that’s winning any heart or mind or any mind or heart.”