McCain/Graham: America Needs to Stop Being Selfish in Syria

mccain jihad

ISIS became an international monster because of the Arab Spring which led to the Syrian Civil War. Fighters and weapons pouring into Syria gave it a serious edge. If Obama and McCain had not supported the Arab Spring, ISIS would not be a major threat.

So the McCain/Graham solution is more of the same.

The airstrikes and other actions President Obama is taking against Islamic State deserve bipartisan support. They are beginning to degrade the terrorist group, also known as ISIS, but will not destroy it, for one reason above all: The administration still has no effective policy to remove Bashar Assad from power and end the conflict in Syria.

Removing Gaddafi from power, another great Obama/McCain plan, did not end the fighting in Libya. It actually made it much worse. Why does McCain imagine that throwing Syria wide open to a bunch of Jihadist militias will get better results in Syria than in Libya?

Mr. Assad all but created Islamic State through his slaughter of nearly 200,000 Syrians, and he has knowingly allowed the group to grow and operate with impunity inside the country when it suits his purposes.

ISIS was originally Al Qaeda in Iraq. Assad did help create it by promoting the passage of suicide bombers into Iraq through Syria when the US was there. But that’s not what McCain means.

Assad certainly didn’t create the Islamic State now. McCain had more to do with that through his obsession with backing Sunni terrorists.

This points to another contradiction: How can we arm and train 5,000 Syrians and expect them to succeed against Islamic State without protecting them (and their families) from Assad’s airstrikes and barrel bombs?

That’s not a contradiction since they won’t be fighting ISIS. They already fight alongside it. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Our efforts to build up a viable Free Syrian Army to liberate Syria from the evils of Islamic State and Mr. Assad will surely fail if the Syrian ruler is not dealt with.

The FSA is a myth. It’s not liberating anyone. The people McCain is relying on are terrorist supporters. And if they can’t win without us fighting for them, then we’ll have to spend the next decade fighting in Syria.

It’s unlikely that the U.S. can maintain public support among Syrians for the fight against Islamic State, or succeed without their support, unless it does more to end Assad’s war against them.

The US doesn’t have their support. And can McCain please stop using Syrians to mean Sunni Muslims. They’re the only group that wants this. And they’re the chief beneficiaries from ISIS’s ethnic cleansing.

Unless we kill Christians and Kurds for them, they won’t support us.

Syrians are already asking why America is bombing Islamic State but not stopping Mr. Assad from bombing them. This only hardens their pervasive belief that America cares only for itself.

So? Isn’t it time we put America first? The various groups in Syria put themselves first. Maybe we should take a lesson from them.

They might even respect us for it.

We’re bombing ISIS because it’s a threat to us. We have no reason to support one side in a Sunni-Shiite civil war. Until McCain and Graham stop repeating the FSA lie and admit that this is a religious war between two sets of terrorists that they want us to intervene in, they have nothing to say worth listening to.

  • odoctorow

    Greenfield has some good points. McCain doesn’t tend to focus on “why” or even on explaining or teaching, but on “invade” or “bomb”. He himself is a mixture of Liberal and Conservative ideas with arguably poor organization. He resembles Bush Jr. but without the integrity and ethics – Bush gave in to conservative and liberatarian pressure and appointed Conservative Supreme Court justices, and Bush responded correctly to 9-11 but then got bogged down in too long wars to teach the wrong things by “charity”, called Counterinsurgency.

    • Pete

      Good post although I would disagree with the last sentence.

      I especially like this this statement

      “He himself is a mixture of Liberal and Conservative ideas with arguably poor organization.”

      It would have taken me a very long time to come up with this succinct observation. I think it nails it.

      • ObamaYoMoma

        and Bush responded correctly to 9-11 but then got bogged down in too long wars to teach the wrong things by “charity”, called Counterinsurgency.

        You need to explain a couple of things: How is reacting to being the victim of the greatest jihad attack ever in the history of Islam by proclaiming Islam to be a so-called “religion of peace” somehow appropriate, and how do you figure that lifting up Muslims, who are the eternal mortal enemies of all infidels in the world, is not incredibly counterproductive and self-destructive. If that is somehow correct, then I don’t want to know what you consider to be incorrect.

  • odoctorow

    Counterinsurgency sounded great and was pushed by charismatic military people, but the basic problem in Iraq and Afghanistan is psychopaths and sociopaths, who do not need to get charity in order to lose wars or battles. Worst of all, they do not need prolonged wars. Barry Goldwater and General Curtis Lemay and Bomber Harries of the U.K. were right – bomb them back to the Stone Ages. Eventually we realized that Drones work, but we only used them for a few selected people who are supposedly “leaders”.

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  • http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/ Edward Cline

    I think McCain’s mind works like a kaleidoscope, a whirl of disconnected colors and shapes that lost all coherence years ago. Perhaps he’s well into the first stage of senility. Someone ought to let him know, gently, at first, and then forcefully, if he keeps giving foreign policy advice and displays further signs of having “lost it.” .

  • Pete

    McCain has always been selfish with the exception of his time in North Vietnam.

    His womanizing, divorce, and second marriage are proof of that.

    His damage of government property, jets, are also proof.

    His decision to stay in office until they pry his cold dead hands off of it is further proof.

  • http://raycaruso.com Ray Caruso

    I wish Assad would drop a barrel bomb on Graham and McCain’s jihadist friends.

  • De Doc

    The Assad regime should be labeled as “Enemy of my enemy (but not necessarily friend)”. So long as his forces do not threaten us or present a conflict of interests re: IS, we should be content with Assad to lay low and out of our way, which seems to be the case so far. There is no need for the US to stir up yet another hornet’s nest in this already train wreck of a region.

    • Pete

      That describes Gadaffi. Except he saw the writing on the wall in 2003 and gave up his nuke programs and bio-weapons program. He also stopped targeting us with terrorism.

      Assad did not.

      But we saw what Obama did to Gadaffi. Obama was brilliant and now Libya is a bigger mess.

  • billobillo54

    It is irrational to believe that Bashir Assad’s regime’s existence is supporting and strengthening ISIS. The exact opposite is true. Try this on for size Senators: I do not trust governments, nations, militias, apologists, sympathizers who are Muslim. Islam is a supremacist, authoritarian, misogynist, anti-Christian, anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish, anti-minority, violent, deceptive, subversive, and extremely intolerant social and political phenomenon. The best governments in Muslim dominated nations are authoritarian dictators who will crush Islamicists. As dangerous and as odious as they are they are the best Islam has to offer. As long as the Middle East is dominated by any of the various forms of Islam, it will be toxic to freedom loving people. “Moderate” Islam is more dangerous than any other form. “Moderate” Islam disguises itself, but in reality is Nazi-like just like ISIS or any other murderous, jihadist, raping, torturing terrorist group who are the image of Muhammad.

    • roger

      “The best governments in Muslim dominated nations are authoritarian dictators who will crush Islamisists”.

      I agree absolutely with this statement, that is why I believe that Bashar Assad should have been left alone.
      Consider this. Syria was a functioning country where minorities had some degree of protection. Syria had agricultural exports along with some oil, textiles etc. Syria was always a threat to Israel but it is a devil Israel knows and could be a whole lot worse if some one like Morsie was in power.

      • billobillo54

        I agree Roger. The elimination of Kaddafi, Mubarak, The liberal Shah of Iran, Saadam Hussein, the introduction of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the PA, Hamas and Fatah IN ISRAEL, The Muslim Brotherhood, et al have produced Islamic regimes who are more closely representative of Islam as practiced by the devil Muhammad himself.

  • SoCalMike

    What a pair of obtuse morons.
    That’s being too kind.
    They both deserve a horsewhipping for not learning from the first time they made the same mistake they are trying to repeat again.
    Maybe if they or their families suffered the way our allies did who got over run by the very jihadi animals McCAin, Graham and Obama armed.

  • joe kulak

    Take them out and shoot them.

  • roger

    No matter which way the US goes, the West will be blamed.
    When was the last time an Islamic group or country expressed their everlasting gratitude to the west for the supply of arms etc.
    I think the Syrian government will initially fall to the combined efforts of Al Nusra, FSA and ISIS, after that it will fracture into groups of warring factions each with their own territories, and all spawning yet more hatred and terrorism activities against the US, Israel and Europe.

  • ObamaYoMoma

    Of course, McCain and Graham are gullible useful idiots when it comes to the Middle East and Obama is the best friend of all Muslims, but they are not solely responsible for the evolution of ISIS, as that has been preordained to evolve and build for decades.

    Not to mention that Bush and the Republicans are also all at fault too. Indeed, after America was the victim of the greatest jihad attack ever in the history of Islam, how did Bush react? He proclaimed Islam to be a so-called “religion of peace” and then occupied two Islamic countries to pursue fantasy based nation building missions to lift up Muslims (the eternal mortal enemies of all infidels) out of poverty because like an idiot he believes “poverty and despair” are the “root causes” of terrorism, and never mind the fact that Muslims are waging jihad against all infidels as opposed to perpetrating terrorism because of “poverty and despair.” Indeed, it just doesn’t get any more insane or politically correct than that.

    In addition, he grew government like a drunken Dhimmicrat on steroids via the creation of the massive Department of Homeland Security and the gargantuan National Intelligence Directorate because as we all know growing government is the solution for everything. Just ask Obama.

    Meanwhile, common sense, as opposed to political correctness, dictated that mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage be banned and reversed ASAP immediately following 9/11, as zero Muslim living in America means zero violent and non-violent jihad in America. Instead, thanks to Bush and the Republicans we ended up with a massive bureaucracy that exist solely to make itself bigger and more powerful, not to protect the American people, but to intrude into all our lives.

    Not to mention that lifting up our eternal mortal enemies couldn’t be any more counterproductive. So yes Bush’s stupidity also helped ISIS to evolve. I mean the instant you remove an apostate ruler like Saddam, Muslims will try to fill the vacuum left behind. It happened in Iraq, in Libya, and in Egypt already.

    Furthermore, if the Iraqi Surge was so successful in defeating AQ in Iraq, as so many Republicans have been suckered into believing, then where did ISIS come from? Moreover, for all you Republicans that believe like Sean Hannity does that Iraq was somehow a victory until Obama came along and snatched defeat out from the jaws of victory, you need to explain to us how it is that you don’t understand that all Muslims are our eternal mortal enemies and that lifting them up is incredibly counterproductive. The same goes for Afghanistan as well.

    Let’s face it all our politicians on both sides of the political aisles are totally 100 percent incompetent when it comes to protecting America from the scourge of Islam. If they had the first clue, they would at least ban and reverse mass Muslim immigration with all of its excess baggage since it is really stealth jihad waged non-violently by design. Moreover, it is astronomically far more detrimental for the infidel world relative to the overblown way out of proportion threat that ISIS somehow represents.

    Sure the face of ISIS is ugly, but so is Islam. It’s as ugly in all of its manifestations as can be.

    I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick and tired of our politicians calling mainstream orthodox Islam, radical Islam, and mainstream orthodox Muslims, radical Muslims, not to offend mainstream orthodox Muslims and there so-called religion, which isn’t a religion at all. It’s not difficult: Outlaw Islam and ban the Koran!

    Moreover, quit chasing hydra-headed jihadists in Iraq and Syria and eradicate Islam instead. Indeed, as long as Islam exists jihad will remain a permanent fixture that will plague the world. How can our politicians miss that?

  • Matthew Johnston

    I don’t have tactical nuclear weapons but without a conventional response to counter 200’000 rockets fired at capital cities and military bases, residential areas. I would have use tactical nuclear weapons on areas of Lebanon. So the deconstruction of Syria and opening the Syrian/Lebanon border to mechanized units to enter Lebanon Beeka, North of the Litani and suburbs of Beirut while allowing some of the force structure to by pass south of Litani. What is the alternative a non conventional response. It sure would make life easier for us.