Sen. John McCain called for 10,000 U.S. ground troops to be deployed in Syria in a French television interview Thursday.
“What I can put the blame on is the United States of America’s lack of leadership that should have seen what this movement is all about,” McCain said in an interview with France 24. “When we left Iraq there was no such thing as ‘ISIS.'”
He called the Islamic State “the godchild of al Qaeda” and the “godchild” of Syrian President Bashar Assad. “Well, exactly on grounds troops, about 10,000 Americans, with a coalition of other Arab countries, hopefully maybe NATO countries, maybe even France,” McCain said when asked about what forces should be sent into Syria.
McCain did not specify if he would like those troops to be used against Assad as well. Opposition to both the Assad government and the Islamic State, warring factions, is the current policy of both the Obama administration and most of the Republican party, although President Obama has called for a political solution to end Assad’s regime, not a military one.
McCain joins several of his fellow Republicans and even some Democrats in the United States in calling for a ratcheted-up plan against the Islamic State following Friday’s deadly terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 129 people.
French President Francois Hollande has called for a “pitiless” war against the Islamic State.
“I understand President Hollande and the French people’s reaction to this,” McCain said. “It is a a form of warfare. But it’s a different kind of warfare. I think when you kill citizens of a country and commit acts of terror, then you can only describe it as war.”
McCain was a champion of the 2007 “surge” strategy in Iraq, which deployed 20,000 additional ground troops to the war-torn country. The long-term success of the plan is debated — McCain and like-minded thinkers believe President Obama withdrew from Iraq prematurely, condemning it to its current turmoil — but the strategy is credited by some with a profound, temporary reduction in violence, a success story of intervention by American ground forces. Critics of the strategy attribute the reduction in violence to other factors, however.
