There is no nation in the Middle East that's better off now than it was in 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, Sen. John McCain said Thursday, placing blame for the flood of refugees now crowding into Europe on the president.
"The whole region is in tumult," the Arizona Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program. "There are more refugees than at any time since World War II, and all of this was not like from a hurricane, it's not like an earthquake."
The problem, said McCain, is "because of a failed feckless foreign policy of this president who decided we would withdraw. Power abhors a vacuum."
The president called the Islamic State, from whom the refugees are fleeing, the "JV" team, said McCain, when he withdrew everybody from Iraq.
"Sometimes I'm frustrated when the president's statements are contradicted by the facts and reality and events," said McCain, who on Wednesday displayed a photo of the
body of a 3-year-old Syrian refugee on the Senate floor as he urged stronger leadership from Obama on Syria.
"No one seems to hold him accountable," the senator told Fox News on Thursday. "But the thing that's most frustrating is that picture of that little boy is symptomatic of what's happening to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the Middle East particularly Syria but other countries as well because of the failure of American leadership."
Meanwhile, he said, Obama has "made statement after statement," but he has not served as a leader and the events "contradicted by his rhetoric have led to the most serious crisis since the end of World War II."
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.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.