If the GOP gains control of the senate this fall, President Obama might face pressure from Congress to send ground troops into Iraq and Syria. And the pressure is going to come from Senator John McCain:
We may be able to 'contain,' but to actually defeat ISIS is going to require more boots on the ground, more vigorous strikes, more special forces, further arming the Kurdish peshmerga forces and creating a no-fly zone and buffer zone in Syria," said McCain, who will, due to seniority, become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in January if the GOP takes the Senate next month.
McCain also said the U.S. needs to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in order to defeat the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS or ISIL.
McCain has been criss-crossing the country, campaigning for Republican senate candidates and has been vocal about wanting to lead the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the country's military and is considered one of the most powerful committees in the senate.
McCain is doing his typical "Democratic candidates and President Obama are weak on foreign policy and national security issues" stump speech but this year, he has super PACs backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, spending millions on new national security-related ads for GOP candidates.
And even though President Obama stated in September of 2014 that he would not put troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria, the GOP leadership has been stating the opposite:
And yet, after Obama announced his no-boots-on-the-ground plan in September, numerous Republicans said the president should be open to sending ground troops, or that he should already have done so. Among those critics were House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
And McCain wants to back up his rhetoric with money. McCain said his first priority is to reverse defense department budget cuts from the 2013 sequestration and said that the U.S. needs to reinstate itself as the world leader of democracy and achieve what former President Ronald Reagan called "peace through strength." This is just more of the same bullshit we have heard from the GOP for the last thirty years.
But if you want to read some REAL bullshit, check this statement out by McCain:
When asked how a Republican Congress might work with Obama, McCain said: "We could work with the House and leave the President two choices -- either sign or veto. But I'm hoping that if we gain the majority, it will be incumbent on Obama to look at the last two years of his presidency and look at what we can accomplish together."
So McCain and the GOP are the party of No for the last 6 years,but if the GOP controls both chambers of Congress, all of a sudden they are going to work together in a great Kum By Yah moment with Obama? The degree of arrogance displayed by McCain these days shouldn't be shocking, but I am still am shocked by statements like these.
In the meantime, voters nationally clearly do not want troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria, but where is the outrage over this in the press? But more importantly, Democratic campaigns should be running commercials about this: See what you get if the GOP takes control of the Senate? Another war in Iraq.
I really doubt Dems will be running ads like this touting what a GOP controlled Congress would look like. But this is a campaign that a group like moveon.org would have a field day with in key states - and that is certainly a campaign I would contribute to.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...