Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are criticizing President Obama’s strategy to fight the Islamic State as an “indirect approach,” and say the U.S. needs a real plan that involves sending 10,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East.
“What’s needed is a strategy to destroy ISIS — not ‘ultimately,’ as the president said last year, but as quickly as possible,” the two wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. They wrote in response to Obama’s Sunday night speech, in which Obama insisted that he has a strategy to destroy the terror group.
According to the senators, the U.S. “still does not have the initiative” after more than a year of “an indecisive military campaign.” And all the while, “the threat is growing and evolving.”
“What’s needed is a comprehensive civil-military strategy to destroy ISIS quickly, while creating conditions that can prevent it, or a threat like it, from ever re-emerging. In short, America must not only win the war, but also prepare to win the peace,” McCain and Graham wrote. They specifically said this action “will likely require two to three times as many forces as the U.S. has in Iraq now.”
McCain and Graham also said the U.S. troops sent to the region must remain there, because “[I]f they leave again, the threat will return, and the U.S. will have to intervene once more.”
“So the U.S. should lead an effort to assemble a multinational force, including up to 10,000 American troops, to clear and hold Raqqa and destroy ISIS in Syria,” the two propose, noting that if the U.S. does not do this, “ISIS will find havens to pursue its evil ends.”
“Over the past seven years, those conditions have grown across the Middle East and Africa,” they concluded. “If these threats are not removed now, and quickly, no one should be surprised when America gets attacked again.”
McCain, from Arizona is chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Graham, from South Carolina, announced his 2016 presidential run in June. According to a RealClearPolitics average of polls, he currently polls at zero percent.
