The news that President Barack Obama plans to overhaul Washington's approach to supporting
Syrian rebel forces following this year's deeply troubled launch of a U.S. military training program is a "logical conclusion to an ill-conceived idea," Lindsey Graham said Friday.
"The Obama administration trained Syrians to fight ISIL, and it was never going to work, because the average Syrian rebel wants to destroy ISIL and destroy [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, who killed their families," the South Carolina senator and GOP presidential candidate told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Martha MacCallum.
The restriction doomed the program to fail, Graham continued, calling Obama and his entire national security team "incompetent."
He further said his biggest fear is that "Obama's incompetency is making another 9/11 likely. People training in Syria by ISIL are coming to America."
But the administration is over selling its successes against ISIL, said Graham.
"ISIL has three goals, they want to reform Islam and make it in their image and kill everybody in Islam who disagrees with them, they want to destroy Israel and come after us, the infidels," he said. "We'll get attacked again because ISIL is projecting force outside of Syria, and Russia is insuring that Assad survives, he's destroying everybody trying to take Assad down. If Assad stays in power it means the war never ends."
Meanwhile, Graham also addressed the turmoil going on in the House, after Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., dropped out of the Speaker's race.
"Paul Ryan will be a good pick," said Graham, himself a former representative. "I liked John Boehner. We'll find a way to raise the debt ceiling and replace the defense cuts. I'm more optimistic this will work out. I hope we can get it done sooner rather than later. Paul Ryan would be a great speaker."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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