Jeb Bush lays out plan to fight ISIS
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Tuesday night outlined a specific plan to counter ISIS in Iraq and Syria, arguing that more than the 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq may be needed. However, he added, a "major commitment of American combat forces" was unnecessary.
Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, Bush also slammed President Obama and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton for their actions in Iraq. He described the "Obama-Clinton" foreign policy as being based on "grandiose talk and little action," while characterizing Clinton's record as secretary of state as "failed."
"Who can seriously argue that America and our friends are safer today than in 2009, when the President and Secretary Clinton - the storied 'team of rivals' - took office?"
The Florida Republican's remarks were billed by the campaign as a major foreign policy speech- Bush's first since announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. At a recent fundraiser, bundlers who raised $27,000 for the campaign were offered tickets to the speech.
The location for the speech, the Reagan Presidential Library, provided a strong symbolic backdrop, with the Reagan Library presidential seal on the podium and four American flags in the background. Throughout the speech, Bush invoked Reagan's name, telling the audience that he called Nancy Reagan in the afternoon to "thank her for this honor and let her know that many, many Americans love her very much."
Laying out his plan to combat ISIS in Iraq, Bush specified that he would have American forward air controllers on the ground to help Iraqi forces spot targets for American fighter aircraft and Apache helicopters.
Under Bush's plan, U.S. troops would not just act as trainers but embed with Iraqi units. Bush also called for the United States to reengage with Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish factions to restart diplomatic efforts to unify the country. "If I am commander in chief, the United States will make certain that the Kurds have everything they need to win," he declared.
The Florida Republican acknowledged that intelligence and military mistakes of were made during the Iraq war but credited the 2007 surge with turning the tide. "In a long experience that includes failures of intelligence and military setbacks, one moment stands out in memory as the turning point we had all been waiting for. And that was the surge of military and diplomatic operations that turned events toward victory," he said.
He also alleged that Hillary Clinton "stood by" as the situation deteriorated in Iraq, and a "hard-won victory" by American and allied forces was "thrown away."
"So eager to be the history-makers, they failed to be the peacemakers," Bush said. "It was a case of blind haste to get out, and to call the tragic consequences somebody else's problem."
In an interview with Univision that aired Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton described Bush's speech as a "desperate move" motivated in part because "his campaign seems to be stalled."
Invoking George W. Bush's name multiple times, Clinton called attention to the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement signed under the Bush administration, saying "his brother signed an agreement with the Iraqis that the American troops would be gone by the end of 2011 unless the Iraqis asked us to stay. So when Barack Obama became president... we had an agreement that George W. Bush had signed.. The agreement was signed by George W. Bush, not by Barack Obama."
In his speech Tuesday, Bush also hit Mr. Obama for drawing a red line on the usage of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria.
"If the choice was between silence and these idle, grandiose words, it would have been better to say nothing at all," he said. He called for the creation of more "safe zones" on the ground in Syria to better protect civilians against ISIS and Assad. He also specified his support for a no-fly zone to prevent the regime from bombing civilians from the air and stop Iranian resupply missions.
In addition, the former Florida governor called on Congress to reject the Iran nuclear deal, describing it as "unwise in the extreme" with a regime that is "untrustworthy to the extreme." He promised that if elected president, he would immediately begin the process of undoing the deal.
The question of Iraq has dogged Bush even before he announced his candidacy for the presidency on June 15. In a May interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly, Bush said, "I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got." That comment kicked off a week of back and forth on Iraq, prompting Bush to finally clarify that he was "talking about given what people had known then [in 2003], would you have done it, rather than knowing what we know now." During the same week, Bush was confronted in Nevada by a college student who declared that, "your brother created ISIS," referring to former President George W. Bush.
Bush also found himself broaching the question of Iraq repeatedly last week as well. Speaking in New Hampshire at the Voter's First Forum, the Florida Republican had demurred on the question of boots on the ground to fight ISIS but expressed openness to the idea of special forces. During a Q&A session before the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tennessee when the issue of deploying ground forces against ISIS came up, Bush reiterated his support for special forces but not ground troops saying, "We're not the world policeman, but we're the world leader."
On Wednesday, Bush heads to Las Vegas, Nevada for an evening town hall. The following day he will speak about national security at a forum sponsored by Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security in Davenport, Iowa.