NBC News "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Military Strategy in Syria and Iraq
Interview
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CHUCK TODD:
You've got it. Senator Reed, welcome back to Meet the Press.
SENATOR JACK REED:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to pick up on a couple issues I didn't get to get to with him. We were talking about Syria. He brought it up. You heard Richard's reporting in Iraq. But the Syria strategy is something everybody agrees nobody quite knows what it is. Are you going to support a resolution giving the president more authority to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria without knowing what his Syria strategy is?
SENATOR JACK REED:
Well, the resolution is based upon an immediate threat of ISIL against the United States. They're holding territory in Iraq against our regional (INAUDIBLE). It's a national effort. We have the Jordanians flying with us. We have the U.A.E. with us, et cetera. And we have to concentrate on the most immediate threat. That threat is ISIL in both Syria and in Iraq. And that's what the authority is requested for.
CHUCK TODD:
You don't think you have to outline? Okay, you get rid of ISIS. That's fine. Something will replace it in Syria that's probably not going to be friendly to the United States.
SENATOR JACK REED:
What we're trying to do, and this is very challenging, is to develop an alternative to the radical jihadists in Syria, and that is the Free Syrian Army. We're beginning to train them. We've authorized the training. It's going to take time.
We're going to have to build it. We're going to have to introduce it onto the ground. We're going to have to effectively protect it. And hopefully, that will be the nucleus for moderate forces to begin to turn the tide in Syria. It's going to take a much longer time, relatively speaking.
CHUCK TODD:
It should be longer? You think three years is too short a time?
SENATOR JACK REED:
Oh, I think the resolution for three years a time limit is not appropriate. We don't want to send a signal to the world that we're there for just so many years. Unfortunately, this battle is going to take a long time. It's a battle, and you pointed out quite rightly, based upon Richard's reporting, and he said that some of the fundamental issues are not operational, tactical, military, they're political.
The engagement of Sunnis, the allocation of resources within Iraq. Even when you get into Syria, what is this political opposition going to look like, not so much what kind of tactical means we're going to have on the ground? So, this is not months. I think we would be better off having a resolution that did not have a specific time limit. I do think, though, it does make sense to indicate very strongly that our engagement would be limited in terms of American military personnel. And that, I think, is included within the resolution.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask a question I get a lot. Why is this our fight? At some point there is this feeling like, "You know what? We can't do it. Why is this our fight?."
SENATOR JACK REED:
You know, this became our fight in 2002, 2003, when we decided to preemptively take out the Iraqi government.
CHUCK TODD:
But whether you agree with the Iraq War or not, you believe the United States Government has a responsibility now to basically put the Middle East back together?
SENATOR JACK REED:
We have the consequences of that decision, which I opposed. And those consequences are destabilized countries in Iraq, to a degree, Syria. A lot of this is flowing from that decision. We have to do this in our own self-interest.
We're doing this to help countries. But ultimately, it's about protecting ourselves. We don't want a radicalized, well-trained individuals coming back from Iraq or Syria and attacking the United States. We don't want other countries that are our allies being subjected to this pressure. But the fight ultimately has to be theirs. Again, the fight ultimately is as much about the politics of the situation as it is about operational technique and forces on the ground.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask you one other question. Another hot spot has to do with Ukraine. Both you and Senator McCain are aligned when the comes to this idea of giving Ukraine arms, arming this opposition so that they can beat back the Russians.
Ukrainian Army could never defeat the Russian Army if the Russians chose to basically escalate. So, if we do this and Ukrainians get slaughtered, is the United States then responsible to escalate yet again, to get NATO involved? I mean, where does it stop on that front?
SENATOR JACK REED:
I've made it very clear that providing defensive weapons to the Ukrainians, counter-battery radars, anti-tank weapons, should not be conflated with ultimately sending any ground forces or more overt help. That has to be very clear to them.
But what it will do is it will increase the cost to the Russians, and not only these military efforts, but probably more importantly, the economic sanctions. When these costs accumulate, at some point, the hope is that Putin will begin to become much more sensitive to what he's doing and stop this. And then, also, I think it sends a very strong signal to not just the Ukrainian people, who are fighting very valiantly and very tenaciously, but to our Baltic allies who are part of NATO and other countries that we are not just going to stand completely aside.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, you seem a lot more optimistic about changing Putin's behavior than most people are these days.
SENATOR JACK REED:
I have no great optimism. But the way you do that is to first get his attention. And I think this may be a way to do that.
CHUCK TODD:
Senator Jack Reed, thank you very much. Before that, Senator John McCain. Thank you both.
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