Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. I will be very quick.

I will vote for the continuing resolution because I do not want to shut the government down. I agree with Senator McCain that this is not the right process, but we are where we are. I think the issue people are focusing on about the continuing resolution is the changing of the training of the Free Syrian Army from title 50, a covert program, to title 10, the Department of Defense, where it will be out in the open.

The reason I support the appropriation and the change in title 10--I think this is a long-overdue effort on our part to build up Syrian forces that can confront both Assad and ISIL, enemies of the United States.

To my colleagues who worry about the people we train and the arms we give falling into the wrong hands, I would say that there is nothing we can do in this area without some risk. But when you tell me there are no Syrians that you believe exist who would fight against Assad and ISIL, I do not believe you quite understand what is going on in Syria. I would say that the vast majority of Syrians have two things in common: They want to overthrow Assad and they want to get ISIL out of their country.

ISIL is mostly non-Syrians. They came from the vacuum created by a lack of security. When Hezbollah and Russia doubled down to protect Assad, who was just about knocked out several years ago, the Free Syrian Army was abandoned by us and the rest of the world and ISIL was able to fill in that vacuum. These are foreign fighters.

So to my colleagues who talk about how they worry, I worry too. I worry about doing nothing. I worry about finding an excuse not to do anything. It bothered me when Republicans embraced the position of President Obama just a few weeks ago that it was a fantasy to train the Syrians to fight for Syria. I do not think it is a fantasy to train Syrians to fight for Syria because they want to. This whole revolution against Assad was not to overthrow him and replace Assad with ISIL.

The people who think the average Syrian wants to be dominated by ISIL instead of Assad, really, I do not think they appreciate what is going on in Syria. That is selling the Syrian people short.

Having said that, the limitations of what the Free Syrian Army can do at this point are real, but training as many as possible makes sense to me. My goal is to keep the war over there so it does not come here. From an American point of view, I think it would be a huge mistake not to provide training and resources to those people in the region--in Syria--to do the fighting because we have common enemies.

Those who say this is too risky, what is your alternative? If we do nothing, ISIL will continue to grow and the threat to our homeland will continue to increase.

It is long past time to blunt the momentum of this vicious terrorist organization. A Free Syrian Army component makes perfect sense to me. Whatever risk is associated with that concept is well worth it at this point.

When we talk about Iraq, I hope the Iraqi Government can reconstitute itself. Their military is in shambles. The Kurds are hanging on in the north with our help. But to dislodge ISIL from Iraq and take back Fallujah and Mosul and other cities, as General Dempsey indicated, would be a very difficult military endeavor. From my point of view, the last thing America wants to do is take ISIL on in Iraq and Syria and fail.

If you do believe that it is about our homeland and that it is not just about the Mideast, allowing ISIL to defeat any force we throw at it makes them larger and more lethal over time. So the worst possible outcome is to form a coalition in Syria of Arab countries and they are defeated by ISIL because we do not provide them the capabilities they lack.

President Obama's insistence of no boots on the ground is the Achilles' heel to his strategy. This is a military strategy, I believe, designed around political promises. This is not the military strategy you would create to destroy or devastate ISIL.

President Bush made many mistakes in Iraq, but to his credit he changed the strategy in a fashion that allowed us to succeed.

One thing I have learned over the past 13 years, you can have a lot of troops doing the wrong thing and it will not matter. When you leave no troops behind, that is a mistake. And if you have too few troops doing the right thing, it will not matter.

The President is right about this. We don't need to reinvade Iraq or Syria. We don't need the 82nd Airborne to go in with 100,000 troops behind it, but we do need to provide capacity to the Iraqis and any future coalition to deal with Syria that is lacking in that part of the world.

Like it or not the American military is second to none. The special forces capability we have can really be decisive in this fight. To every American, this is not only about them over there, this is about us here.

The better and the sooner that ISIL is defeated, the more decisive ISIL is defeated, and the sooner that day comes about, the safer we are at home.

I urge the President to not take options off the table.

I am voting for this change in strategy regarding the Free Syrian Army because I think it is long overdue. When the President does the right thing, I want to be his partner. Mr. President, if you will come up with a strategy to destroy and defeat ISIL that makes sense, I will be your best ally and try to help you on this side of the aisle. This is a first step in the right direction, but when you play out this strategy, which you are trying to do, I think it will not work unless you embrace American assistance in a greater level to the Iraqi military and to any coalition you could create in Syria.

The last thing I want this body to understand, this is the last best chance we will have to put ISIL back in a box so they can't wreak havoc in the Mideast and grow in strength. The stronger they are over there, the more endangered we are over here.

It is in our interests to help our Arab allies and our Iraqi allies destroy ISIL. It is not just about those people over there. Lines of defenses in the war on terror make perfect sense to me.

The best way to keep this fight off our shores is to engage the people who will help us carry the fight to the common enemy. ISIL is not only an enemy of Islam, it is an enemy of mankind, and failing to defeat these people will resonate here very quickly.

We have a chance. Let's take advantage of it. There is nothing we can do in a war on terror without risk, but now we are fighting an Army, not an organization. If we defeat ISIS, the war is not over. This is a generational struggle. But if you do defeat ISIL, as a turning point in our favor--if they survive our best attempt to defeat them--God help us all.

I yield back.

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