Bipartisan calls for a more forceful response to the situation in Iraq grew Sunday, with a pair of lawmakers calling for President Obama to send U.S. soldiers back to the war-torn country.
“Ultimately we may have some boots on the ground there,” Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We need to do everything we can to repel ISIS. I don’t think we have the luxury of putting our heads in the sand and saying, well, it’s over there and we’re not going to do it.”
Engel, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, added “that’s not something I want, but you know what, we have that choice and the worse choice is to do nothing.”
“If we allow ISIS to get bigger and bigger, they’re going to plot homeland attacks on us,” he added.
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, meanwhile, acknowledged that Americans are reluctant to get re-involved in Iraq, but warned that the White House has no other options.
“These are evil people that need to be defeated,” Johnson said. “We may be war-weary. But I’ll tell you, ISIS, is not war-weary. They’re highly trained, they are highly organized. They have been very patient setting up this caliphate, and that they’re long-term aim really is to use that base of operation against the West.”
“We need to be highly concerned about this. This threat is a gathering storm. It’s not going away,” he added.
President Obama, in recent weeks, has stepped up U.S. efforts to combat ISIS’ rise throughout Iraq and Syria, approving airstrikes against the terrorist group, but has continually ruled out putting more U.S. boots on the ground.
