Should the president have listened to the experts?

Speaking on 60 Minutes former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he, along with a majority of President Obama’s national security advisers, recommended two years ago that Syrian rebels should be armed.

He says that might have prevented the rise of ISIS.

But he told CBS’s Scott Pelley that while he disagreed with the president’s decision to hold off, he understood the reasons.

“He had a fear that if we started providing weapons, we wouldn’t know where those weapons would end up. My view was, you have to begin somewhere,” said Panetta.

But CBS Military Analyst Jeff McCausland, who has worked on the National Security staff, taught at West Point, and commanded an artillery battalion in 1991 during Desert Storm, said just because we think we’ve finally figured out who the moderates are, it doesn’t eliminate the risk that we might end up arming the wrong people.

“Sadly, we can expect I think, that some of these weapons will, in fact, fall into the wrong hands. Finally, at least, we’re making the assumption that when we train, organize and equip these so-called ‘moderates,’ that they’re going to fight ISIS. But in reality, if anything, what they’d like to do is still overthrow President al-Assad,” McCausland said.

So, since the risk is the same – what’s changed in the last two years?

The public opinion polls, that’s what. Two years ago, Americans wanted no part of this fight. But the military success of ISIS and those gruesome videos have now convinced Americans to let the weapons flow.

Even though most of us still have no inkling of the real intentions of the fighters who will be getting them.