Republicans who are backing President Barack Obama’s plan to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels expressed concerns on Friday about whether the strategy would be far-reaching enough to defeat Islamic militants and other regional adversaries in the Middle East.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved the training program on Wednesday as an amendment to a short-term spending bill, and the Senate passed it on Thursday. House Republicans voted in favor of the measure 159-to-71.
"There were very few voices who expressed any confidence in the president to prosecute this war in the way we think it should be prosecuted," Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kansas) told the Washington Free Beacon.
"You go to war with the president you have," he added, paraphrasing comments once made by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in response to criticism of the military’s state of readiness.
The plan enables the Pentagon to vet, train, and arm about 5,000 Syrian rebel fighters to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), the brutal jihadist group that has seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria. However, it will be months before the trainees are battle-ready.
Other concerns linger about the rebels. They will still be outnumbered by an ISIL fighting force with between 20,000 and 31,500 members, according to the Central Intelligence Agency. Some of the rebel groups also admit that they at times have cooperated with the al-Nusra Front, the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, in their two-front war against ISIL and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Still, the rebels are the only viable option for the United States in Syria, said Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R., Mo.).
"It’s the only force so far that has had success in pushing back against ISIL in Syria," she said.
GOP lawmakers said Obama has still not articulated an overarching strategy to fight Islamic terrorists and other adversaries in the Middle East. Intelligence officials say the al-Nusra Front and another al Qaeda-linked group in Syria, known as Khorasan, continue to plot attacks on American airliners.
Regional anti-American actors also stand to benefit from U.S. efforts against ISIL. Assad’s forces have launched new airstrikes in recent days to oust the same moderate rebels that U.S. officials aim to train, a strategy that would leave the authoritarian leader in power if ISIL is eliminated. Iranian-backed Shiite militias also dominate the Iraqi security forces.
"If we don’t do this right, this is just a whack-a-mole strategy," said Rep. Rob Wittman (R., Va.). He added that Obama should seek a congressional authorization for the use of force when the current law expires in December.
Wittman, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, additionally raised concerns about a lack of military funding to address ISIL and multiplying threats around the world. Defense spending accounts for about 18 percent of the federal budget, but the Pentagon will absorb half of the billions in sequestration cuts mandated over the next decade.
"The concern is we’re a mile wide and an inch deep," Wittman said, referring to the prospect of a U.S. military that is stretched too thin to face multiple crises.
"When [adversaries] perceive a weakness in the United States from a military perspective, they see that as an opportunity," he added.
Lawmakers have now left Washington to prepare for the midterm elections. Pompeo said foreign affairs will loom large in the minds of voters.
Pompeo said that local polling in his Kansas district indicated that national security was a rising priority for his constituents, and said that the frequent remark that Americans are "war-weary" after a decade of conflicts in the Middle East was a "leadership cop-out."