McCain: Obama Fighting Islamic State with ‘Incrementalism,’ ‘Reminiscent of Vietnam’

Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said President Barack Obama has “no strategy” and is fighting the ISIS with “incrementalism” “reminiscent” of Vietnam.

McCain said, “They have no strategy as far as Syria is concerned. You have now seen the Saudis involved in Yemen. You have seen a real change in their behavior. If we told them that we would eliminate both Bashar al Assad and ISIS, I think you could put together a coalition. You are not going to defeat them from the air. You are going to have to have people on the ground and I believe you could assemble that coalition with the United States playing a supporting role because they realize that ISIS and Bashar al Assad are a direct threat to them.”

Mitchell  asked, “Let me just be clear about American troops. American special operation forces in Syria, in particular, what Ash Carter was talking about today. Do you support that? Is enough being proposed?”

McCain said, “It’s incrementalism. it’s reminiscent frankly of the Vietnam conflict when we would react to North Vietnamese successes. It also indicates we don’t have a strategy. We are reacting to Paris. we have to articulate, lay down a strategy and if that requires more American involvement. I’m not talking about 100,000 or a surge but more American involvement, then we ought to tell the American people that. They would support it if we said look, here’s how we win. Right now, there is no firm date when we could get ISIS out of Raqqa or even Mosul. As long as they’re there and they have a base, they are metastasizing. Look what’s happening in Libya. they are now taking over Gadhafi’s old hometown, and they will be able to orchestrate attacks from there. They are metastasizing and time is not on our side.”

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