Levin opening statement, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq, Syria and ISIL
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
This morning, the Committee receives testimony from the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as “ISIS” or “ISIL,” and on the President’s strategy for addressing this threat. Secretary Hagel and General Dempsey, we welcome you both and we look forward to your testimony.
ISIS has terrorized the Iraqi and Syrian people, engaging in kidnappings, killings, persecutions of religious minorities, and attacking schools, hospitals and cultural sites. ISIS has brought home its barbarity with the brutal beheading of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines.
While ISIS is currently focused on building an Islamic “caliphate” in the Middle East, its poisonous ideology is hostile not only to the region but to the world, and there is a real risk that the area that it controls could become a launching pad for future terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies. This threat is amplified by foreign fighters who travel from western countries to join with ISIS and then return to their countries of origin with advanced training and fighting experience.
I recently returned from Iraq, where U.S. airstrikes are helping Kurdish peshmerga forces and Iraqi security forces break ISIS’s momentum. However, our military leaders and intelligence experts uniformly say that airstrikes alone will not be sufficient to defeat ISIS.
A number of elements of a successful strategy against ISIS are embodied in the approach outlined by the President last week.
First, the participation of key Arab states in the region will be critical to the effectiveness of any international coalition. If western countries act in Iraq and Syria without visible participation and leadership of Arab nations, it will play into the propaganda pitch of the violent extremists that we are interested in dominating Iraq and Syria. ISIS’s poisonous strand of Islam is a threat to all Muslim countries and can only be purged in a lasting way by mainstream Islam and the Arab world. The international conferences in Jidda last week and in Paris yesterday were a good start, with a number of Arab states declaring their shared commitment to develop a strategy “to destroy ISIL wherever it is, including in both Iraq and Syria” and joining in an international pledge to use “whatever means necessary” to achieve this goal.
Second, our assistance has been requested by the Government of Iraq, which has made a commitment to govern in an inclusive manner. The effort to rid Iraq of ISIS cannot be successful without the support of all elements of Iraqi society including not only Shiites, Kurds, and religious minorities, but also the Sunni tribes who strongly opposed the Maliki government. The more the new government in Baghdad does to address the grievances of Iraq’s Sunni communities, the more successful they will be in helping rid their country and the world of the ISIS poison.
Third, the President has announced that combat operations in Iraq and Syria will be carried out by Iraqis and Syrians with the support of a broad international coalition. That is the better approach because in this part of the world the use of military force by western nations can be counterproductive. In the absence of a western target on the ground, ISIS’s actions will undermine its own cause because its brutality will continue to be targeted at fellow Muslims. We should be fully engaged in training and equipping Iraqis, Syrians, Kurds, and other local forces that are willing to take on ISIS, but we should try to counter the narrative of fanatics who attack western combat forces on the ground as an “occupation.”
I believe the President, under both domestic and international law, already has the authority to conduct the type of limited military campaign that he outlined last week. However, bipartisan, bicameral congressional support will make it easier for the President to build an international coalition, including the open and visible support of Arab countries. We should have the chance before we leave to vote on legislation that would authorize the U.S. military to openly train and equip the vetted, moderate opposition in Syria, and I hope that Congress can come together to support it.
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