Except for one sinister snicker
when Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) expelled rowdy Code Pink protestors,
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) did not look at all pleased this morning
during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the ISIS
threat and the proposed American response.
McCain disagreed that the strategy for combating ISIS presented
by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey went
far enough in addressing the “immediate threat to American people
and interests in the Middle East.”
In his opening remarks, Hagel stated that the strategy would
involve a mixture of air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and
Syria, a deployment of military advisers to Iraqi and Kurdish
forces, and the arming and training of 5,000 “vetted” moderate
Syrian rebels. He said that the U.S. was building an international
coalition to implement a comprehensive approach to fighting
ISIS—including Arab Muslim nations. Hagel conceded that
this would be no short-lived task:
Significant commitment like this will not be an easy or a brief
effort. It is complicated. We are at war with ISIL, as we are with
al-Qaeda…but destroying ISIL will require more than military
efforts alone.
Dempsey echoed Hagel, stating that, although the strategy
focused on getting Iraqi security forces on their feet, an
“Iraq-first strategy is not an Iraq-only strategy”—should ISIS
remain in Syria, it will remain a threat, hence the need for a
coalition force to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels.
In accordance with the current presidential stance, however,
Hagel and Dempsey made a studious effort during their testimony to
stress that military advisers are not boots on the ground—at least
for now. Dempsey said:
My view at this point is that the coalition is the appropriate
way for it…if it fails to be true and there are threats to the U.S.
then I would…recommend a solution that would include military
ground forces.
Later he made the same point, responding to a question about the
role of American forces in Iraq:
The airmen…are very much in a combat role. The folks on the
ground are in a very much combat advisory role. They are not
participating in direct combat. There’s no intention for them
to do so. But if I found the circumstances evolving I would change
my recommendation.
Despite leaving open a very real possibility of future ground
troops in the the region, these answers still left McCain
unsatisfied. He seemed skeptical that Hagel and Dempsey could think
that a strategy of bombing, training, and arming would have the
desired effect. Specifically, he worried about the U.S.-led
coalition training and arming members of the Free Syrian Army
without offering substantive American military support. He
said:
They will be fighting against [Bashar] Assad and Assad will
attack them from the air, which he has done with significant
success …if one of the Free Syrian Army is fighting against Assad
and he is attacking them from the air, would we take action to
prevent them from being attacked from Assad?
Meant to elicit a concession that boots on the ground are a
strategic necessity—or, at the very least, a distinct
possibility—McCain could only get a half answer from Hagel: “Any
attack on those we have trained, we will help.” Hagel then changed
tack, arguing that focusing on Assad would weaken the international
coalition and that an ISIS-only strategy is feasible.
But McCain might still have the last laugh: The hedging about
when exactly combat advisers turn into actual combatants—which
Dempsey said he’d consider “on a case-by-case basis”—leaves the
boots-on-the-ground question very much up in the air.
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