Making it official today in Central, South Carolina, 59-year-old two-term U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham declared for president, telling a hometown crowd he wanted to change U.S. foreign policy. Citing the late President Ronald Reagan’s “peace-through-strength” motto, Graham obliquely swiped at President Barack Obama’s foreign policy refusing to starting a new ground war in Iraq. Graham and his foreign policy mentor, Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), were big supporters of former President George W. Bush’s Iraq War. Both condemn Obama’s Mideast policy as too passive, blaming the president for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Graham told his audience he wants to stop the world from “falling apart,” urging voters to not back his candidacy unless they want to return to a pre-emptive foreign policy to defeat ISIS.
Graham’s message seemed eerily out-of-touch with today’s voters that are too jaded by nearly 14-years of foreign wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Those who believe we can disengage from the world at large and be saved by leading from behind, vote for someone else. I am not your man,” Graham told a partisan hometown crowd. Were it not for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq practically breaking the country, voters would be more receptive to the central premise of Graham’s speech: That America, as Teddy Roosevelt once said, “walk softly but carry a big stick.” After watching the economy crash under former President George W. Bush in 2007 spending over $2 trillion on the Iraq and Afghan wars, Graham’s argument appeals to what remains for GOP hawks. Today’s voters show little interest in waging another costly Mideast war with, at best, an uncertain outcome.
Graham, like other Republican candidates, don’t admit that Bush-43’s pre-emptive war policy in Iraq destabilized the region, causing anarchy after toppling the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein April 10, 2003. Today’s chaos caused by the Islamic state directly relates to toppling Saddam, having no contingency plain in place once the authoritarian dictator—and his military—was eliminated. Graham and other U.S. foreign policy hawks believe that only if the U.S. had more troops in the war that somehow the outcome would be different. That’s the same faulty logic used by the late presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon for prosecuting the Vietnam War. Yet no matter how many troops the U.S. sent and now matter how may bombs dropped, the outcome was the same: Complete U.S. failure. Graham wants to return to Bush-43’s pre-emptive war strategy in Iraq.
Graham’s logic is built off many faulty premises, including that the U.S. in a post-Saddam era can fix untold years of sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunnis. While Saddam’s Sunni Baathist [Arab socialist] regime ruled Iraq, Iraq remains 60% Shiite. Bush-43 officials fashioned a Shitte government led by former Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri al-Maliki for the post-Saddam government. It didn’t take long for Saddam’s former Baathists and elite Republican Guards to make a comeback through ISIS led by Saddam’s red-haired former Gen. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. Graham, McCain and what’s left of Bush-43’s neocons on Capitol Hill want to re-litigate the Iraq War as if that would change the outcome. “I want to be president to defeat the enemies trying to kill us, no just penalize them or criticize them, but defeat them,” said Graham, raising fears that ISIS has gone global.
Graham leaps across the logical abyss equating ISIS with al-Qaeda, the terror organization founded by Osama bin Laden, responsible for Sept. 11. However despicable ISIS tactics, including torture, ethnic cleansing and political mass murder, ISIS lacks the infra-structure and advanced planning for overseas terror operations. Unlike al-Qaeda, from all accounts, ISIS is a homegrown terror organization designed to reclaim Saddam’s lost state. While there are elements fighting in other countries, like Syria, Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, Somalia, Yemen, etc., ISIS’s global reach looks limited to lone-wolf attacks, not Sept. 11-type operations. “Simply put, radial Islam is running wild,” Graham said, stating the obvious but offering no fix other than going back to Bush-43’s pre-emptive war strategy. Graham offers nothing new to the Mideast’s age-old problems other than more U.S. boots on the ground.
Polling poorly in the GOP field, Graham offers an old point-of-view of what to do with ISIS as it seizes more territory and gets dangerously close to Baghdad. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter caused quite a stir in foreign and domestic circles May 24 accusing the Iraqi military of losing its will to fight. Carter referred to the Iraq army retreat May 19 from Ramadi, losing some 240 Humvees and scores of other heavy U.S. military equipment to ISIS. Iraq’s current Shiite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi knows that his military has been infiltrated by Sunni insurgents, cheering on ISIS as they march toward Baghdad. Unlike the early days following Sept. 11, the public’s less naïve about the war on terror. Spending billions and losing more troops on foreign wars without any guaranteed outcome no longer appeals to today’s voters. Graham carries an old message whose time has passed.
