Stars & Stripes reports that Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee that US forces in Iraq are “prepared to assist the Iraqi army with additional unique capabilities to help them finish the job\u201d in Ramadi, where he claims that the Iraq Army has made gains against ISIS fighters in the city.<\/p>\n
But the Obama administration\u2019s approach is not enough, said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee\u2019s chairman, who called for U.S. troops to be inserted into Iraqi units closer to the front lines to offer advise and call in airstrikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do need in Iraq is several thousand additional U.S. troops to improve and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, especially Sunni tribal fighters and embed to advise Iraqi units closer to the fight, call in airstrikes from forward positions, and conduct counter-terrorism operations,\u201d McCain said, adding later \u201cthere are 20,000 to 30,000 of them. They are not giants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defending the president\u2019s approach, Carter said deploying a large U.S. force to drive the militants from Iraq and neighboring Syria would not ensure lasting stability in the region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While I agree that we should not send thousands of US troops to Iraq to refight the war there, I also must express disappointment with the Obama Administration. Carter says that he intends to ask regional partners to do more in this fight. Why hasn’t that been done already? The Saudis and the Gulf States have done very little compared to the West in this war to save the region from an Islamic hegemony, the Caliphate that threatens the Kingdom. No one in the region, besides Jordan and Turkey, have taken on the refugee problem, the least they could do is provide some ground forces to send into the meat grinder. When Hussein was at the gates of their pleasant little kingdoms, they ponied up troops.<\/p>\n
It looks to me like the Arabs and this president are hoping that the next president will be forced to have the US fight in Iraq all over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"