Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul blames President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the rise of the Islamic State.

“I would say that she and the president are responsible for ISIS rearing its ugly head,” McCaul said, during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters in Washington D.C. this morning.

He argued that any Republican nominee for president would have a huge advantage over Clinton in 2016 as it was clear that the issue of national security was paramount among voters.

“I think Mrs. Clinton has a lot of weaknesses because she was the architect of the Obama administration’s foreign policy,” McCaul said, referring to her role as Secretary of State.

He argued that a lack of a status of forces agreement in Iraq was mainly responsible for the security implosion in that country, pointing out that Clinton only visited Baghdad one time while serving as Secretary of State.

After Clinton and Obama took office, he noted, the entire State Department had dumbed down their language on the threat from radical Islamist terrorism and created a more dangerous world.

“The whole vernacular in the State Department changed when they came into office … they just wanted to wish this away, and you know what, it didn’t go away,” he said. “And now he can’t get his head around this thing called ISIS.”

By not defining the enemy, McCaul argued, or changing the rules of military engagement, it was hard to say that Obama believed his was at war with ISIS.

“I think that they are war with us, but I don’t think this administration is at war with them, and I think that’s the inherent problem,” he said. “We need to be.”