Obama's Inaction Blamed for Rise of Islamic State

America's military launched a fourth round of airstrikes against Islamic State radicals in Erbil, Iraq, this weekend.

The strikes are meant to protect U.S. personnel in and around the Kurdish capital.

"I don't think we're going to solve this problem in weeks," President Barack Obama warned. "I'm not going to give a particular timetable because, as I've said from the start, wherever and whenever U.S. personnel and facilities are threatened, it's my obligation, my responsibility as commander in chief to make sure they are protected."

In addition, senior officials say the Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to those Kurdish forces, allowing them to gain some ground in their battle against the jihadists.

The United States is also providing aid to victims trapped on mountains due to Islamic State attacks.

Meanwhile, Obama is taking fire from the left and the right for the rise of the Islamic State and the disaster in Iraq.

On NBC's Sunday morning program, "Meet the Press," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the terrorist group is a growing danger to America.

"Every day that goes by ISIS builds up its caliphate and it becomes a direct threat to the United States of America," he said. "They are more powerful now than al Qaeda was on 9/11."

King also said the president cannot avoid responsibility for the rise of the jihadist army.

"When the president...he tries to blame it on the intelligence community, that they didn't tell him... General Flynn was saying months ago that ISIS was going to move to Iraq. Fallujah fell months ago. This president did nothing. All we talked about was ending the war in Iraq. All he ended was American influence in Iraq. And that's a failure and it's on his hands," King charged.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also blaming the president for the creation of ISIS.

She said the radical Muslim army gained strength because the United States didn't do enough to help moderate rebel forces in the early days of the Syrian revolution.

"The failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled," she told The Atlantic magazine.

In a reference to Obama's own description of his foreign policy doctrine she said, "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."

In her book, Hard Choices, Clinton wrote that as Obama's secretary of state, she argued the United States should play a bigger role in aiding Syria's moderate rebels.

Clinton is considering running for president in 2016.