The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Wednesday that the administration’s “gamble” of abandoning the Middle East led to the power vacuum that allowed the Islamic State to rise to power.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said President Obama has scaled back America’s involvement in the Middle East over his two terms, and assumed incorrectly that other countries in the region would step up to police the region and maintain security.
“The results of this massive gamble should now be clear to us all: No new order has emerged in the Middle East, only chaos,” McCain said in his opening statement.
McCain praised former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton for shifting strategy when it appeared they were heading for defeat, but criticized Obama for doubling down on “its reactive, incremental and inadequate policies,” even as the Islamic State still maintains control of key Iraqi cities like Mosul and Fallujah.
“It is impossible to assert that ISIL is losing, or that we are winning,” he said.
Both McCain and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the committee, pointed to a situation in Syria that was becoming increasingly dire. Reed commented on the “staggering” humanitarian costs of the violence, while McCain lamented that there is no viable way to kick the Islamic State out of its self-declared caliphate in Syria in the foreseeable future.
“In Syria, there is no plausible strategy to achieve ISIL’s defeat on a timeline that won’t result in the tragic deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians. There is still no ground force that is both willing and able to retake Raqqa, nor is there a realistic prospect of one emerging soon,” McCain said. “In the absence of a realistic strategy to create the conditions for the achievement of U.S. goals, the administration has instead fallen back on hope.”
Reed said he looked forward to expert witnesses sharing what they hoped to see from a new Global Engagement Center being established to better share information among agencies.
“This is a well-intended effort, but we must ensure that it is adequately resourced and empowered with necessary authorities if it is to be successful,” he said.
