[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 5 (Thursday, January 9, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S197-S200]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                FALLUJAH

  Mr. McCAIN. Some of us were in the Senate 10 years ago in 2004 when 
U.S. troops led two major offensives against Al Qaeda and other 
militants in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Some of us remember how 146 of 
our brave men and women in uniform lost their lives and more than 1,000 
were wounded. Those fights were some of the bloodiest and toughest 
battles since the Vietnam war. Success was costly, but success we had. 
Ten years later, Al Qaeda fighters have once again raised their black 
flags over Fallujah, and they are battling to control other parts of 
Iraq.
  This tragic setback is leaving many of our brave Iraq war veterans--
and especially those who shed their blood, risked their lives, and lost 
their friends in fighting against Fallujah--questioning what their 
sacrifice was worth. Sadly, they find themselves agreeing with 
Congressman Duncan Hunter, a former marine who fought in Fallujah.
  He said:

       We did our job. We did what we were asked to do, and we 
     won. Every single man and woman who fought in Iraq, and 
     especially in those cities, feels a kick in the gut for all 
     they did, because this President decided to squander their 
     sacrifice.

  Prior to 2011, President Obama frequently referred to a responsible 
withdrawal from Iraq, which was based on leaving behind a stable and 
representative government in Baghdad and avoiding a power vacuum that 
terrorists could exploit.
  The President's Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken in 
2012--and I am not making this up--stated that ``Iraq today is less 
violent, more democratic, and more prosperous . . . than any other time 
in history.''
  Based on the President's own markers, the administration is falling 
short of its own goals. The illusion of a stable and representative 
government has been shattered by increasing sectarian tension, and it 
is clear terrorists are exploiting the power vacuum left behind.
  The Obama administration blames Iraqis for failing to grant the 
necessary privileges and immunities for a U.S. force presence beyond 
2011. This is misleading--in fact, false--because as we saw firsthand, 
the administration never took the necessary diplomatic effort to reach 
such an agreement.
  The Senator from South Carolina and I traveled to Iraq in May 2011, 
only several months away from the deadline that our commanders had set 
for the beginning of the withdrawal. We met with all the leaders of 
Iraq's main political blocs and we heard a common message during all of 
these private conversations: Iraqi leaders recognized it was in their 
country's interest to maintain a limited number of U.S. troops to 
continue training and assisting Iraqi security forces beyond 2011.

  But when we asked Ambassador Jeffrey and the Commander of U.S. Forces 
in Iraq Lloyd Austin, while in a meeting with Prime Minister Maliki, 
how many U.S. troops remaining in Iraq would perform and how many the 
administration sought to maintain, they couldn't tell us or the Iraqis. 
The White House still had not made a decision.
  It went on like this for the next few months. By August 2011, leaders 
of Iraq's main political blocs joined together and stated they were 
prepared to enter negotiations to keep some U.S. troops in Iraq. An 
entire month passed and still the White House made no decision. All the 
while, during this internal deliberation, as Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff GEN Martin Dempsey later testified before the Senate 
Armed Services Committee, the size of a potential U.S. force presence 
kept cascading down from upwards of 16,000 to an eventual low of less 
than 3,000. By that point, the force would be able to do little other 
than protect itself, and Prime Minister Maliki and other Iraqi leaders 
realized the political cost of accepting this proposal was not worth 
the benefit.
  To blame this failure entirely on the Iraqis is convenient, but it 
misses the real point. The reason to keep around 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. 
forces in Iraq was not for the sake of Iraq alone. It was first and 
foremost in our national security interest to continue training and 
advising Iraqi forces and to maintain greater U.S. influence in Iraq. 
That core principle should have driven a very different U.S. approach 
to the SOFA--the status of forces agreement--diplomacy.
  The Obama administration should have recognized that after years of 
brutal conflict, Iraqi leaders still lacked trust in one another, and a 
strong U.S. role was required to help Iraqis broker their most 
politically sensitive decisions. For this reason the administration 
should have determined what tasks and troop numbers were in the 
national interest to maintain in Iraq and done so with ample time to 
engage with Iraqis at the highest level of the U.S. Government to shape 
political conditions in Baghdad to achieve our goal.
  We focus on this failure not because U.S. troops would have made a 
decisive difference in Iraq by engaging in unilateral combat operations 
against Al Qaeda and other threats to Iraq's stability. By 2011, U.S. 
forces were no longer in Iraqi cities or engaged in security 
operations. However, residual U.S. troop presence could have assisted 
Iraqi forces in their continued fight against Al Qaeda, it could have 
provided a platform for greater diplomatic engagement and intelligence 
cooperation with our Iraqi partners, it could have made Iranian leaders 
think twice about using Iraqi airspace to transit military assistance 
and weapons and arms and equipment to Assad and his forces in Syria 
and, most importantly, it could have maintained the significant 
diplomatic influence the United States at that time possessed in Iraq--
influence that had been and still was essential in guaranteeing Iraq's 
nascent political system, reassuring Iraqi leaders they could resolve 
their differences peacefully and politically, despite their mistrust of 
one another, and checking the authoritarian and sectarian tendencies of 
Prime Minister Maliki and his allies.
  The administration's failure in Iraq has been further compounded by 
its

[[Page S198]]

failure in Syria. In Syria, where President Obama has refused to take 
any meaningful action, the initially peaceful protests of early 2011 
were met by horrific violence by the Assad regime.
  This President and this administration have stood back and watched 
while over 130,000 people have been brutally killed and a fourth of the 
population displaced. In his promise to avoid military action and 
reduce the U.S. footprint in the Middle East, we have seen the 
resurgence of Al Qaeda throughout the region, Hezbollah and Iran 
emboldened in Syria, Russia reasserting its principal presence for the 
first time since it was kicked out of Egypt by Egyptian President Sadat 
in 1973, and the destabilization of the region in ways that will 
inevitably reverberate here in America.
  Again, there are those who may applaud President Obama's decision to 
disengage, arguing this isn't America's problem to solve. That the 
United States is fundamentally limited in its ability to influence 
developments in the Middle East is a consistent theme within the 
administration. No one denies there are limits to what the United 
States can do. That is always the case. But as Secretary Hillary 
Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as she was leaving 
office:

       Let me underscore the importance of the United States 
     continuing to lead in the Middle East, North Africa and 
     around the world. When America is absent, especially from 
     unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism 
     takes root, our interests suffer, and our security at home is 
     threatened.

  Nowhere do her words ring more true than in Syria and Iraq today, 
begging the question that by fleeing Iraq and sidestepping Syria has 
the administration helped empower terrorist forces in ways that have 
created long-term threats to U.S. national security? I am afraid it is 
hard to argue the answer is no.
  The administration must recognize its failed policies and change its 
course. America has lost credibility and influence over the past years, 
and we simply can't afford to remain disengaged. It is time that 
America stands and take its rightful role in resolving these conflicts 
to best serve American interests. It is time we adopt a comprehensive 
strategy for addressing the growing threats that are now emanating from 
the region and move forward from a position of strength. A return of Al 
Qaeda to Anbar Province is a sobering reminder for the administration 
that the tide of war is not receding.
  I see my colleague from South Carolina is here. I am sorry I didn't 
realize he had come to the floor. I know the Senator from South 
Carolina and I need to discuss a recent unfortunate development in 
Afghanistan, but before we do, could I recall for my friend from South 
Carolina the many visits--and I have lost count, but many visits--we 
made to Iraq from 2003 really up to 2012, and that one of the most 
interesting visits we had was when we were in Ramadi and Colonel 
MacFarland announced to us that the Sunni sheiks had come over--that 
the major sheik had come over, and he had sent some tanks over--and 
that was the beginning of what we know as the Anbar awakening--a 
turning point in the entire conflict. That, coupled with the surge, 
changed the fortunes of war in Iraq.
  By the way, the surge was opposed vehemently by the President of the 
United States and the former Secretary of State, then Senator Clinton, 
who stated in a hearing with General Petraeus that she would have to 
have a ``willing suspension of disbelief in order to believe that the 
surge would succeed.''
  But setting that aside, later, when we came back again to Fallujah 
and Ramadi, the Senator from South Carolina and I walked down the main 
street of Ramadi--down the main street--with Iraqis everywhere, proving 
the success of the surge in Anbar Province. Yet now, on the same 
streets we walked down--the exact same streets--there are now vehicles 
filled with Al Qaeda, flying the black flag of Al Qaeda.
  The bloodiest war of the conflict that was fought during our entire 
involvement with Iraq was the second battle of Fallujah. There were 95 
brave Americans killed and over 600 wounded. What do we tell these 
young people and their families? What do we tell them? I tell you what 
we have to tell them. We have to tell them their sacrifice was 
squandered by an administration that wanted out and didn't want to 
remain and consolidate the gains that were made through the sacrifice 
of American blood and treasure.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I would be glad to respond to the Senator's comments.
  No. 1, I understand the average American thinks of the wars in Iraq 
and Afghanistan as having been long and difficult wars costing a lot of 
money and a lot of American lives. But the point of the war is to make 
sure that radical Islam is contained and eventually defeated, and that 
is going to take an effort on our part.
  Does it matter that the Al Qaeda flag flies over Fallujah and Ramadi? 
I think it does. I think when Al Qaeda occupies a city anywhere in the 
world, it potentially affects every city throughout the world. Imagine 
the Nazis having come back in Germany and occupying part of Germany. We 
didn't let that happen. We had a following force in Japan and Germany 
to make sure the transition from totalitarian and dictatorial states to 
functioning democracies would occur. We are still in Japan and Germany. 
We are not taking casualties.
  To go into the Mideast and replace dictatorships and think you can do 
it in a matter of months or even a decade is probably not going to hold 
water, quite frankly. The good news is we were in a position in Iraq in 
2010 where if we had left behind a residual force not to be in combat 
but to provide the logistical, air support, training, intelligence 
capabilities missing in the Iraqi Army, this would have been a very 
different outcome.
  And it does matter to my fellow citizens here in the United States. 
If Al Qaeda is on the rise anywhere, it does affect us. Remember 
Afghanistan? Remember when the Russians left and the Taliban took over 
and they invited Al Qaeda and bin Laden in to be their honored guests? 
The rest is history. The reason 3,000 Americans died on 9/11 and not 3 
million is the terrorists, the radical Islamists, Al Qaeda and their 
affiliates can't get the weapons to kill 3 million of us. If they 
could, they would.
  So the goal is to create stability and marginalize Al Qaeda 
throughout the region. Unfortunately, as Senator McCain has predicted 
for a very long time, the absence of a following force allows security 
to break down and the vacuum was filled by the emergence of Al Qaeda in 
Iraq.
  I would like to go over some testimony from June of 2010, when 
General Austin was about to take over from General Odierno the command 
of our operations in Iraq. General Austin told me during my questioning 
that we were inside the 10-yard line when it came to being successful 
in Iraq. In other words, the surge had worked. The surge Senator McCain 
supported during his Presidential campaign worked.
  President Bush made his fair share of mistakes in Iraq, but to his 
undying credit he adjusted policies. We were all in. He gave General 
Petraeus all the troops we had to give and he stood behind General 
Petraeus, and over a 2- or 3-year period there was a phenomenal 
turnaround in the security situation in Iraq. The surge started in late 
2007, early 2008.
  Here is what had existed in 2010 in June. Basically, we were inside 
the 10-yard line, and General Odierno said: I think the next 18 months 
will determine whether we get to the goal line or give the Iraqis an 
opportunity to hit the goal line beyond 2011.
  So we were in a good spot. The surge had worked, and we needed to 
close this thing out. I asked this question back in 2010: What would 
happen if Iraq had become a failed state? Let's say we are inside the 
10-yard line but we are not smart enough to get in the end zone. What 
would happen? Here is what General Odierno said:

       . . . if we had a failed state in Iraq, it would create 
     uncertainty and significant instability probably within the 
     region. Because of the criticality of Iraq, its relationship 
     to Iran, its relationship to the other Arab states in the 
     region, if it became unstable, it could create an environment 
     that could continue to increase the instability.

  I don't believe we are close to that. I believe we are very far away 
from that happening. I think we are definitely on the right path. But 
those are the kinds of things which would happen if we had a complete 
breakdown inside Iraq. Here was a quote:


[[Page S199]]


       The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, has 
     said repeatedly that Iraq is not yet fully capable of 
     defending its own air space or land borders, and that it 
     needs help in other areas such as intelligence and logistics.

  Our military commanders were telling us that the surge had worked, 
but we were not there yet.
  Here is what I would like to say to the administration: If you 
believe Iraq was the wrong war to fight and we shouldn't be there, own 
your decision. Don't blame the Iraqis.
  The truth is the administration, led by President Obama, had 
absolutely no desire to leave one person behind in Iraq because this 
was Bush's war and America was tired, and he ran on the idea of ending 
the war in Iraq. When it came time to make that fateful decision about 
a small 10,000 or 12,000, whatever the number was, residual force to 
maintain the gains we fought so hard and to keep Iraq stable, he now 
wants to tell the world it was the Iraqis. I know differently.
  I know, and so does Senator McCain, that this administration made it 
impossible for the Iraqis to say yes because this administration would 
never give the Iraqi Government a troop number from the White House as 
to the size of the force.
  I remember General Austin saying publicly we needed 18,000. The 
bottom line from the Pentagon was somewhere slightly north of 10,000. I 
remember the discussions in the White House got down to 3,500 and it 
was cascading down.
  I remember General Dempsey answering my question as to how the 
numbers were reduced: Was it as a result of the Iraqis saying, no, that 
is too many troops to leave behind in Iraq or were the numbers reduced 
because the White House did not want to have that many people left 
behind? He said the cascading down from 18,000 all the way to 3,500 had 
nothing to do with the Iraqis. It was the uncertainty and unwillingness 
of the White House to commit to a number.
  So what happened? We left the country with 200 U.S. troops advising 
and assisting, no capability. Everything they talked about happening if 
we do not get Iraq right and get into the end zone from the 10-yard 
line in 2010 is happening on steroids. Everything our generals told us 
about what would await Iraq if we didn't get this right is coming true 
at an accelerated pace.
  So I turn it back over to Senator McCain.
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask the Senator again: One, Iraq and Syria now 
are in danger of becoming a base for Al Qaeda and movement back and 
forth between that area of Anbar Province, which obviously poses an 
enormous threat, because we know what the ultimate goal of Al Qaeda is.
  Could I also recall for my friend from South Carolina the meeting we 
had with Maliki--after we had met with Allawi, after we had met with 
Barzani, the leader of the Kurds, who all agreed we would get together 
and endorse a U.S. troop presence to remain in Iraq. This 
administration refused--even after we came back and begged them to give 
us a number--refused to give the number, claiming it had to be endorsed 
by their Parliament, which was absolutely false.
  But now we see Iranian aircraft overflying Iraq with weapons and arms 
for Bashar al-Assad. We see Anbar and that area of Syria and Iraq now 
becoming possibly a base for Al Qaeda to operate. We see the two major 
cities in Anbar, Ramadi, and Fallujah--where so much American blood was 
shed--now with vehicles driving around with the black flag of Al Qaeda 
on display.
  I think it is important we make it clear. The Senator from South 
Carolina and I are not advocating sending combat troops back to Iraq. 
That is impossible. It may be an avenue, but it is impossible, and we 
are not advocating that. We are advocating that we give advice, send 
equipment, and we give them some capabilities. We help them with 
intelligence. There are certain places we can help them. But at the 
same time, now Prime Minister Maliki has to reach out to the Sunnis and 
get a reconciliation.
  From the day U.S. troops left Iraq, Maliki began to persecute the 
Sunni. He even charged his own Vice President, who was a Sunni, with 
treason and the Vice President had to leave the country.
  So if any of this is going to work, if we have any influence--and 
have no doubt who has the influence in Iraq today: Iran. But if we have 
any influence, we have to tell Maliki we want to help and we want to 
give him the kind of technical assistance he needs. But he has to reach 
out to the Sunni in the way that took place in the Anbar awakening back 
in 2008. Because without national reconciliation, all the equipment and 
all the assistance we can give the Iraqis will not help.
  So I do blame Prime Minister Maliki. Responsibility lies with his 
behavior toward the Sunni, but we were not there to influence him. We 
were not there. It is not only the kind of assistance we could have 
provided them that they need, but it also is the influence issue. No 
expert on Iraq today will tell you we have anything but a minimal 
influence and Iran has that. If anybody thinks Al Qaeda's control of 
large portions of Iraq and Syria is not a threat to the United States 
of America, then they don't understand the nature of Al Qaeda.
  Mr. GRAHAM. As to the future of how to move forward, Prime Minister 
Maliki with all thought did go to Basra and take on the Shia militia.
  The political gains we made in Iraq are being lost by lack of 
security. If we would have had a residual force, the political momentum 
toward reconciling Iraq would have continued. Without security, people 
go back to their sectarian corners. I would argue that the Sunnis need 
to up their game too.
  But the immediate problem is how do you repel Al Qaeda from Fallujah 
and Ramadi? The way it worked before is you had the Sunni awakening, 
where the Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar had a taste of the Al Qaeda 
agenda and said: No, thank you. They were literally killing children in 
front of their parents for smoking. The stories coming out of Anbar 
Province about the abuse the people of Anbar suffered under Al Qaeda 
control would break your heart. So the Sunni leaders married with 
American military personnel to drive the Al Qaeda elements out of 
Anbar.
  We are not there now. So how do you get Al Qaeda dislodged from Anbar 
Province, Ramadi and Fallujah? You are going to have to get the Sunni 
tribal leaders to work with the Iraqi Army.
  I think now is a good time to send a former military commander of the 
U.S. forces--someone who is retired if that is what is required--to see 
if they can bring these parties together to form a military alliance 
between the Sunni tribal leaders and the Iraqi Army so the weight of 
the Iraqi Army can be brought into this fight. The distrust is high. 
But the way Al Qaeda was defeated in the past was the U.S. military 
working with the Sunni tribal leaders. We are not there.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would argue, I say to the Senator from South Carolina, 
two names which spring to mind would be General Petraeus and Ambassador 
Crocker, probably the two most respected people in Iraq today. Maybe we 
are getting into too much detail, but I do agree with him on that.
  Mr. GRAHAM. The bottom line is we have to change the momentum. We are 
not there. But Senator Menendez, to his great credit, is willing to 
release his hold on the sale of Apache helicopters to allow the Iraqi 
military an advantage over Al Qaeda. I think Senator Menendez did the 
right thing.
  So supplying arms in a smart way is part of the strategy to move 
forward. But we have to get the military in Iraq working with the Sunni 
tribal leaders.
  I would ask Senator McCain this question: On the other side of the 
border in Syria is complete chaos, is hell on Earth. I don't know how 
we stabilize Iraq long term until we deal with the dismantling of Syria 
where Al Qaeda occupies the region right across the Iraqi border. How 
does a breakdown in Syria affect Iraq?
  Mr. McCAIN. I don't think there is any doubt, I would say to my 
friend from South Carolina, that this has become an almost safe 
operating area on both sides of the Syria-Iraq border for Al Qaeda.
  It is interesting. There has been a little good news in the last day 
or two; that is, some of the more moderate forces in Syria have struck 
back at this radical Islamist group because of the incredible cruelty 
of al-Nusra and ISIS, which is the radical Islamic group both in Iraq 
and Syria. Interestingly enough, that is being accomplished without any 
U.S. help. Thank

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God for the other countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others 
which have been of assistance to these people. They have been driving 
out some of the more extremist element. We are working with the 
Russians to remove the chemical weapons.
  In Syria today, Bashar al-Assad, from helicopters, is dropping these 
crude cluster bombs which are just shrapnel that kill anybody within 
lethal range. Since dropping it on populated areas, Bashar al-Assad has 
slaughtered innocent men, women, and children.
  So here we are working with the Russians. Today there was a U.N. 
resolution from the Security Council condemning Bashar al-Assad's 
barbaric behavior. Guess who vetoed that. Our friends, the Russians. 
This is the most Orwellian situation in Iraq anybody has ever seen 
throughout history. Russians are working with us to remove chemical 
weapons from Syria and at the same time aircraft from Russia are 
landing full of weapons to kill Syrian men, women, and children. I am 
not sure a Syrian mother can differentiate between her child dying from 
a chemical weapon or dying from one of these cluster bombs that Bashar 
al-Assad is unloading from his helicopters.
  So we have this grandiose idea the Secretary of State and the 
administration have been pushing for months and months to have a Geneva 
II. The first Geneva failed. Does anyone on God's green Earth believe 
that Bashar al-Assad, who is winning, is going to preside over his own 
transition from power? Of course not.
  I will never forget--I am sure the Senator from South Carolina will 
never forget--the testimony of our now still Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff and then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta before the 
Armed Services Committee: Bashar al-Assad inevitably will leave.
  The President of the United States: Bashar al-Assad, it is not a 
matter of when, it is not a matter of whether he will leave but a 
matter of when.
  Meanwhile, the weapons pour in from Iran; Hezbollah, 5,000 of them; 
130,000 people slaughtered, and one-quarter of the population being 
slaughtered, while this administration not only sits by and does 
nothing but the President of the United States says nothing.
  This will go down as one of the most shameful chapters in American 
history. If the policy of this administration is to only focus on 
counterterrorism, get out of the Middle East, and remove any 
involvement of the United States in the Middle East, I can assure my 
colleagues the Middle East will not allow the United States of America 
to not be involved.
  Mr. GRAHAM. If I may just conclude. I have a quote from Speaker 
Boehner, who said he would support the Obama administration if it 
decides to leave troops in Iraq beyond 2011.
  I remember Senator Obama and Senator Clinton not being particularly 
helpful to the mistakes made in Iraq during the Bush administration. In 
fact, the entire election in 2008 and the primary was about Iraq. I 
remember the politics of Candidate Barack Obama, who basically used the 
Iraq war to win the nomination, for lack of a better word. I remember 
during the campaign he talked about Afghanistan being a good war. We 
will talk about Afghanistan later. It is not a happy story either, I am 
afraid.

  But the bottom line is that there was bipartisan support for troop 
presence beyond 2011, a residual force. This administration chose to 
ignore the advice of the commanders, and they created the situation 
where the Iraqis could not say yes. Yet they want history to record 
this being a problem created by the Iraqis for not giving legal 
immunity to U.S. soldiers. History is going to be written about our 
times. How this ends, nobody knows. But I know this: It is not fair to 
say that the reason we have nobody left behind in Iraq is because of 
the Iraqis. It is fair to say that the administration got the result 
they wanted, and they should own that--good, bad, or indifferent. Don't 
create a straw person for the situation that you drove and you created.
  As to Syria, please understand that this whole conflict started when 
people went to the streets peacefully to ask for more political freedom 
after the uprising in Egypt; that this war in Syria did not start with 
a Sunni uprising or Al Qaeda invading the country. The conflict in 
Syria started when the people of Syria, from all walks of life, started 
demanding more from their government, from this dictatorship, and the 
response they received from their government was to use lethal force.
  It has broken down now to a regional conflict where the Iranians are 
backing Assad and you have Sunni Arab States backing parts of the 
opposition and you have Al Qaeda types coming from Iraq and other 
places filling in the vacuum created by this breakdown in Syria.
  At the end of the day, what Senator McCain had been talking about for 
3 years is that once you say Assad has to go--no President should say 
that unless they are willing to make it happen. Assad was on the ropes. 
With just any effort on our part, a no-fly zone to boots on the ground, 
any assistance at all in the last couple of years and Assad would be 
gone, the transition would be well underway. It would have been bloody 
at first, but we would have behind us now a Syria moving toward 
stability because the good news is the average Syrian is not a radical 
Al Qaeda Islamist. Syrians have been living peacefully with each 
other--Christians, Sunnis, and Alawites--for hundreds of years. Now 
Syria has become the central battle for every radical Islamist in the 
region, and it is just sad and sorry to witness.
  But what does it mean to us? It means that if this war continues--our 
friend the King of Jordan is under siege. The Lebanese Ambassador 
testified a couple of weeks ago in our committee that the country is 
saturated. Almost 1 million refugees from Syria have gone to Lebanon. 
There are over 5 million in Lebanon today. They have added almost 1 
million refugees from Syria. They didn't plan to get to 5 million 
people until 2050. The Kingdom of Jordan--the Jordanians have received 
over 600,000 refugees, with no end in sight.
  Syria is not a civil war. Syria is a regional conflict where you have 
proxies backing each side in Syria that are taking the entire region 
into chaos. It is killing Iraq. It is destabilizing Lebanon and Jordan. 
It has to be addressed in an effective way.
  If you want to be President of the United States, certain 
requirements come with the job: having a vision, making tough calls at 
the time when it would matter. On President Obama's watch, you had the 
Arab spring come about and you had a desire by this administration to 
leave the region at any and all costs. Now you have absolute chaos. The 
only way we are going to fix this is for America to get reengaged. We 
do not need boots on the ground, but we need leadership.
  It just breaks my heart to see how close we were in 2010. The surge 
did work in spite of opposition from President Obama as Senator and 
Secretary Clinton as Senator. In spite of their vehement opposition, 
the surge did work, and on their watch we are about to lose everything 
we fought for. Al Qaeda is the biggest beneficiary of our withdrawal 
from Iraq. Al Qaeda is the biggest beneficiary of our indifference in 
Syria. Al Qaeda is thriving, and our allies and our friends are in 
retreat.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, thank you for your patience.
  We yield the floor.

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