Lindsey Graham gives detailed blueprint for ground troops in the Middle East
By Katie Glueck
| 7/8/15 2:10 PM EDT
| Updated 7/8/15 2:30 PM EDT
In his most extensive policy address to date as a presidential candidate, Lindsey Graham on Wednesday laid out a detailed vision for a muscular national security agenda — the animating issue of his campaign — as he also chided his own party over immigration reform.
During an appearance at the Atlantic Council that lasted well over an hour, the South Carolina senator came out swinging against the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton and in particular, Senate Republican colleague and 2016 rival Rand Paul, criticizing them for what he characterized as a naive and dangerous approach to foreign policy.
“Everyone running except Rand Paul could get a better [nuclear] deal with the Iranians” than President Barack Obama could, he said, one of several hits he landed on the libertarian-leaning senator.
Graham, for his part, sought to cast himself as a solutions-oriented candidate prepared with alternatives on issues including the Islamic State, Iran and Syria. The senator detailed the U.S. troop levels he would want to see in Iraq (10,000), Afghanistan (9,800) and Syria (about 10,000, as part of a regional force) and warned darkly that he wanted to see a good deal with Iran over its nuclear ambitions — something he doubted Obama could achieve. If a military conflict were necessary, he said, Tehran would lose.
“Elections are about choices,” he said. “You have [17] people to choose from as of this morning on the Republican side, you’ve got several on the Democratic side. When it comes to foreign policy, Lindsey Graham offers a very clear and different path. The path that I embrace is going to be tough, but the outcome would ensure a safe America.”
Graham barely registers in the polls and is considered a long shot for the nomination, but among Republicans he’s a respected voice on national security and foreign policy, the issues that are the focal point of his campaign.
CAMP DAVID, MD - MAY 14: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to reporters following the Gulf Cooperation Council-U.S. summit on May 14, 2015 at Camp David, Maryland. Obama hosted leaders from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Amirates and Oman to discuss a range of issues including the Iran nuclear deal. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch - Pool/Getty Images)
“If you’re too tired to defend this country, too war-weary, don’t vote for me,” he said. “OK!” replied a woman in the audience (It wasn’t clear who offered that response, but Graham’s appearance was at one point interrupted by Medea Benjamin, the head of the anti-war group Code Pink, who was eventually drowned out with boos. “I’ll put her down as ‘undecided,’” Graham said, to laughs).
Currently, the three-term senator doesn’t look poised to qualify for the first debate, but if he were to make it, or participate in those down the road, he has the potential to influence the debate in an already hawkish field. He, along with John McCain, is a leading Senate proponent of American intervention abroad and summed up his philosophy in combating radical Islam as, “Whatever it takes, as long as it takes.”
“Whether you agree with me or not, most people in the Middle East know me, and I know them,” said Graham, a military lawyer who recently left the Air Force Reserve, touting his experience with foreign affairs in the Senate.
Graham, who has previously said he wouldn’t have supported invading Iraq knowing what he knows now, was also somewhat critical of former President George W. Bush. When CNN’s Jake Tapper, who was moderating the event, noted that Iran was still an adversary of the U.S. during the Bush administration, even though the former president shared Graham’s views on the importance of an aggressive foreign policy, Graham lamented that the previous White House hadn’t focused more on Iran.
“When it came to Iran, he didn’t project strength,” Graham said of Bush. “Plenty of blame to go around here.”
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 18: Freshman U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) participates in a conversation about American foreign strategy and statesmanship at the Hudson Institute March 18, 2015 in Washington, DC. An Army veteran of the Iraq war, Cotton, 37, has been the focus of praise and criticisim after he authored a letter to the Iranian leadership that warned about making a nuclear agreement with President Barack Obama. The letter, signed by 47 of Cotton's fellow Republican senators, states 'The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen, and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.' (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
He added that he has learned from the mistakes of Bush and Obama, as well as his own.
Graham is also one of the GOP’s biggest proponents of immigration reform, an issue he touched on toward the end of his appearance, when he asserted that he didn’t need a “lecture” on the issue from either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Graham went on to skewer Trump, the controversial real estate magnate and GOP presidential candidate, over recent inflammatory comments he has made about immigrants.
“The first rule of politics when you’re in a hole is to stop digging,” he said. “Someone needs to take the shovel out of Donald Trump’s hands.”
Trump has said repeatedly that many illegal immigrants are “killers” and “rapists.”
Graham bristled at that, calling “most of them good, hard-working people,” many of whom have children who contribute greatly to U.S. society, including serving in the military, he said, offering up a fictional example of someone he dubbed “Sgt. Gomez,” because friends call him “Lindsey Gomez.”
Those comments came as he noted, more broadly, that Republicans lost badly among Hispanic voters in 2012 and remain “in a hole with Hispanics,” and that Mitt Romney rightly acknowledged his recommendation during the 2012 presidential cycle that illegal immigrants should “self-deport” was hugely damaging. He also lamented that GOP House members have reflexively rejected Senate attempts at immigration reform. But his most heated rhetoric was directed at Trump.
“When Donald Trump says that most of these people are drug dealers and rapists, what you’re telling Sgt. Gomez is his mother, his older brother, his father, in the eyes of at least one Republican, are a bunch of bad people. Why would any group vote for a party who embraces that? I sure as hell wouldn’t.”
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/lindsey-graham-forieng-policy-2016-presidential-run-119850.html#ixzz3fOMQnMLt
