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U.S. ground war in Syria? What would Robert Gates say?

Just Foreign Policy

Dec. 9, 2015

Remember Republican Defense Secretary Robert Gates 2011 "farewell address" at West Point?

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,”.[1]

But here we go again.

Republican candidates who claim to represent the mainstream of their party—including Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio—have argued for American ground troops in the fight against the Islamic State, according to the Washington Post. [2]

CNN recently reported that a majority of Americans now support sending U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS. [3]

The New York Times notes that this is exactly what ISIS wants - to draw the U.S. into a ground war. [4] But if the Syrian civil war is not resolved diplomatically before President Obama leaves office, a U.S. ground war in Syria is the "alternative" that is waiting in the wings. The current diplomatic process must succeed; a much larger war is the likely alternative.

At Just Foreign Policy, we have been building support for and drawing attention to the diplomatic alternative to military escalation and we will continue to do so in the new year. [5]

We're trying to raise $25,000 by the end of the year. Will you help by making a $15 tax-deductible end-of-year donation?

http://justforeignpolicy.org/donate

If you would like to send a check instead, here's our address:

Just Foreign Policy

4410 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, #290

Washington, DC 20016

And if you haven't signed our petition urging Secretary of State Kerry to press for a ceasefire in Syria by New Year's Day, you can do that here:

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/new-year-syria-ceasefire

Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,

Avram Reisman, Robert Naiman, and Sarah Burns

Just Foreign Policy

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