The new chairman of the House Armed Service Committee says the U.S. military has its hands tied in Syria, and should consider putting some boots on the ground to help rebel forces break the Islamic State's expanding grip there.
Texas Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry says the administration's current military strategy
— airstrikes and foreign troops
— is ineffective, a slap at
President Barack Obama's State of the Union boast that it's keeping the nation out of another war in Iraq.
"My point is we should not tie our hands and pretend there is a border there when there is not," Thornberry told a group of reporters Thursday,
Stars and Stripes reports.
"You have to look at where in Syria [U.S. forces would operate] and the risk they would be under and could they be protected."
About 2,300 troops are deployed to Iraq to train and assist the country’s military, with some dedicated to protecting those trainers. But so far the military has limited Syria operations to the air.
"I think pretty much everybody involved in training in Iraq and Afghanistan believes those forces are much more effective when they go to the front with U.S. advisers," he said,
The Wall Street Journal reports.
"Us being at the camp saying ‘OK, go get ‘em boys’ is not nearly as effective as, not us fighting, but moving out with them to help."
Doing so would be risky, exposing them to potential capture by Islamic State forces, the Journal notes. But Thornberry said there's no easy solutions.
"There are some problems that get to the point that they are such a mess there’s not really a solution that says this is the answer," he said, the Journal reports. "And I think Syria is just a horrible mess that prevents us from having a one, two, three sort of solution."
"Political constraints are not going to get the job done," he added, Stars and Stripes reports. "This is hard enough even if we don’t tie our hands."
Thornberry's hawkish stance will probably jibe with his counterpart in the upper chamber, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.