Sending American combat troops to fight in Syria could be “what it takes” to defeat ISIS as part of a more aggressive U.S. strategy against the terrorist group, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said yesterday.
Walker, rising in the polls as a likely Republican candidate for president, said Americans “need to take the fight to ISIS and any other radical Islamic terrorists anywhere around the world.”
Walker appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” in the wake of the most recent beheadings by ISIS — two Japanese hostages. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., considering his own race for president, yesterday warned “a Paris [terror attack] on steroids” could occur in America.
Graham renewed calls for President Obama to deploy significant numbers of U.S. troops against the Islamic State organization – also known as ISIS or ISIL — in an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Walker was interrupted repeatedly by Martha Raddatz, ABC’s senior foreign affairs correspondent, who challenged his assessment of the limits of U.S. airstrikes.
“[W]e have to be prepared to put boots on the ground, if that’s what it takes.”-@GovWalker
When Raddatz pressed on what he meant by an “aggressive strategy,” the Wisconsin governor replied:
I think anywhere and everywhere, we have to go beyond just … air strikes, we have to look at other surgical methods and ultimately, we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground, if that’s what it takes. … When you have the lives of Americans at stake, and our freedom-loving allies anywhere in the world, we have to be prepared to do things that don’t allow those measures, those attacks, those abuses to come to our shores.
Graham, on “Face the Nation,” said the U.S. can’t destroy ISIS without 10,000 or so American troops embedded in a “regional force” that includes Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Those allied troops would “go into Syria and take that territory from ISIL,” he told Norah O’Donnell, outlining a strategy he has voiced for months.
“Syria and Iraq combined are the best platforms to launch an attack on United States that I have seen since 9/11,” added Graham, who sits on both the International Relations and Armed Services committees.
Referring to the massacre committed by Islamist terrorists last month at the Paris office of a satirical French magazine, Graham said:
So, you will see a Paris on steroids here pretty soon if you don’t disrupt this organization and take the fight to them on the ground. And, again, you cannot successfully defeat ISIL on the ground in Syria with the Free Syrian Army and regional coalition of Arab nations until you deal with [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, because he will kill anybody that comes in there that tries to defeat ISIL.
Robert Gates, defense secretary under both Obama and George W. Bush, also revoiced qualms about how the president is going about his stated goal to destroy ISIS. Appearing yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gates said the goal is “unrealistic” and “unattainable” with air power alone.
Obama has not indicated his willingness to expand the U.S. mission beyond air strikes and a limited troop presence. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, the president said:
What I do insist on is that we maintain proper perspective and that we do not provide a victory to these terrorist networks by over-inflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat to the United States or the world order. … It means that we don’t approach this with the strategy of sending out occupying armies and playing Whac-a-Mole wherever a terrorist group appears, because that drains our economic strength and it puts enormous burdens on our military.