The Obama administration's decision to spend millions of dollars training fighters in Syria, only to have just a handful be trained, is another example of the president's failed foreign policy in the Middle East, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Friday.
"You remember when the president said, oh, almost derisively, 'just a bunch of lawyers, doctors and pharmacists that are fighting Bashar al-Assad?" the Illinois Republican and officer in the U.S. Air National Guard told
Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Martha MacCallum. "The president missed his opportunity and he comes up with this plan [to] train moderates in Syria."
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The problem is, said Kinzinger, that there are many moderates in Syria, but the plan does not allow the people being trained to fight against Assad, the enemy who killed their family members, but instead to only fight against ISIS.
And, Kinzinger said, "By the way, we'll not provide a no-fly zone over you...this is why you have the exodus of the Middle East. You are draining young men who need to be there to secure and fight for the area."
In addition, Russia, which has not had a role in the Middle East since the Soviet Union fell, is now beginning to renew its presence, and the president is not standing strong against them, said Kinzinger.
"Instead the president said hopefully we'll enter into talks with Russians," he said. "Those talks will not end with the United States getting concessions from Russia. It will end like the Iran talks did, with us begging Russians to be on our side."
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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