“She [Clinton] clearly says she wants to intensify what we’re doing-more special forces-but there was no strong distinction other than no-fly zone”, Rose said.
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“I think it gives ISIS a new recruitment tool if we get back into the fight”.
McCain and Graham also criticized President Barack Obama’s Daesh strategy, which relies on airstrikes and modest support to what Washington deems as ‘moderate’ militants in Syria, stressing the need for greater U.S. in the Middle East conflicts.
McCain and Graham, who is running a longshot bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, spoke with Camerota from Irbil, Iraq.
Defections of Islamic State fighters – a closely watched measure by officials of U.S.-led coalition – have begun to thin the ranks of the militants in Iraq in the last month, intelligence reports and drone footage show.
In such a scenario, we could see regular USA infantry units engaged in the kind of heavy combat the Obama administration has sought to avoid since withdrawing combat troops from Iraq in 2011.
McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently proposed intervention in Syria by a European and Arab ground force backed by 10,000 USA military advisers and trainers.
“I agree with the president’s point that we’re not putting American combat troops back into Syria or Iraq”. Russian Federation has been carrying out air campaign against Daesh in Syria at the request of President Bashar Assad since September. “Now I believe that they do”. “[They’ve] warned that deploying ground troops risks backfiring by feeding ISIS’s apocalyptic narrative that it is defending Islam against an assault by the west and its authoritarian Arab allies”, explains the Guardian.
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“We were talking to the now-King of Saudi Arabia (Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) before he became king and he told John McCain, who he admires greatly, ‘You can have our army, you just gotta deal with Assad.’ The emir of Qatar said ‘I’ll pay for the operation, ‘ Graham said”. Meanwhile, some US counter-terrorism experts fear increased involvement would only strengthen the Islamic State.
