The Obama administration made an all-out publicity push Sunday to bolster support for the president’s plan in Syria, which Congress will take up this week, putting top White House surrogates on television all day.
Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, in Washington, and Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking from the Middle East, stuck to talking points that defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria will require boots on the ground and that an international coalition would work together against the terrorist group.
“Which is why I keep asking you if we can expect that they will put troops on the ground, that these — that throughout the Middle East, there are people who have more at stake in this fight than the U.S. does,” CNN’s Candy Crowley asked McDonough.
“That’s right,” McDonough responded. “But we have a lot at stake in this fight, which is why the president has made the decision he’s made. He’s working and consulting with Congress to do this, and he’s working with our allies to make sure that we have a durable, sustainable coalition.”
But McDonough repeatedly deferred to Kerry to talk about which countries would be sending ground troops, and Kerry, in turn, declined to discuss it Sunday.
At times, the Obama proxies said that some countries had volunteered troops, but that the U.S. wasn’t looking for them to do that “at this time,” seemingly relegating their assistance to training and air strikes, the same type of involvement the U.S. intends to have.
The administration aides said it was a fight that must take place between Sunni Muslims. Syria’s own forces seem outgunned, but that doesn’t necessarily rule out other Muslim countries sending their own troops.
A Republican congressman said Jordan was among the countries that had offered troops.
Republicans on the Sunday talk shows hit Obama for delaying an intervention and for being reluctant to provide ground troops.
That included a visibly outraged Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying there was “no way in hell” the president’s plan would work and that it was “delusional.”
Republicans said the president who ran on ending involvement in the Middle East was now forced to reluctantly confront engagement there.
With the third beheading of a Westerner by the Islamic State, Crowley asked whether the group would target one of the hundreds of American soldiers being deployed, apparently in non-combatant roles.
“That’s why ultimately the United States, with this coalition effort, Muslim states, Sunni states, part of that effort, will ultimately not only degrade this capability with [the Islamic State] but destroy [the Islamic State] itself, because it really stands for nothing,” McDonough said.
