Is The War Against The Islamic State Becoming Another Vietnam?

U.S. Senator John McCain speaks during the inauguration ceremony of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (StratCom COE) in Riga, Latvia, August 20, 2015. REUTERS/INTS KALNINS

Leo Shane III, Military Times: McCain: ISIS fight becoming another Vietnam

The U.S. fight against Islamic State militants risks becoming “another slow, grinding failure” like the Vietnam War, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman warned Tuesday.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been a frequent critic of the White House approach in the Middle East, but invoked his own past as a Vietnam War pilot in his latest rebuke. In a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, McCain compared the current strategy to “the failed policy of gradual escalation” in that previous war.

“My conversations with military commanders both on the ground and in the Pentagon have led me to the disturbing, yet unavoidable conclusion that they have been reduced from considering what it will take to win to what they will be allowed to do by this administration,” he wrote.

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WNU Editor: US Senator MacCain wants to increase massively (and quickly) the U.S. military presence in the region .... a policy that I do not agree with. Fortunately .... so do many Americans who are not sympathetic with the idea of sending tens of thousands of U.S. ground troops back into Iraq .... and then probably into Syria. But a debate is needed .... and probably a better political and military strategy be developed instead of this gradual approach that is going nowhere. As to the Vietnam comparison .... Senator McCain is correct .... there are some similarities but this is a different conflict .... the Vietnamese did not wage war on the U.S. homeland .... these Jihadists do.