Sen. Murphy: Don’t send U.S. ground troops
As a senator and a dad to two young boys, the Paris attacks reconfirmed the commitment I made to Connecticut to do everything and anything to prevent an attack on U.S. soil. It’s why I support U.S. airstrikes against ISIL, tighter immigration laws to keep terrorists out, and a political process to build inclusive Sunni-Shiite political systems.
But I oppose sending American ground troops into Syria for one simple reason: It would increase, not decrease, the chances that ISIL launches a successful attack against the United States.
Our country’s military leadership opposes putting ground troops into Syria because they study history. They know it was the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq that provided the primary impetus for the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which morphed into ISIL. Having just made that colossal mistake, why would we make it again?
ISIL engages in indiscriminate attacks such as those in Paris to goad the U.S. and our allies into actions that feed their narrative that the Western and Muslim worlds are at war. They know the story of Iraq — for every jihadist we killed, we inspired two more to join — and they want to see us repeat this mistake in Syria.
Our military leaders also know the other lesson from Iraq — that any gains in the fight against extremism cannot hold without local ownership and leadership of the fight. We pushed back al-Qaeda in Iraq during the surge, but it fell apart the minute our troops and money left. As retired Army general Martin Dempsey said, pushing back ISIL with U.S. troops without accompanying political successes is like “painting over rust.”
We should show no mercy to ISIL. But we should learn from recent history and recognize the limitation of blunt U.S. military power to change political realities in the Middle East. A locally owned military and political campaign against ISIL might take longer to build and achieve results, but the litany of past policy failures in the Middle East tells us that it’s the only way to put ISIL into the grave for good.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.