The terror attacks in Paris have altered the presidential campaign here. The candidates heightening their focus on national Security. Candidate Chris Christie has notified President Obama that he intends to close the state’s borders to refugees. He spent the weekend asserting Obama’s fight against ISIS is “misguided.” Joining us is Senator Foreign Relations committee member United States Senator Robert Menendez. He spoke with NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams about the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
Williams: The president has said that much of the response after Sept. 11 was based on fear. He’s trying to be more measured, and that’s opened him to some criticism. Do you think the country’s response to ISIS is appropriate?
Menendez: Well I think we need a more robust engagement on ISIL. I think we need a community of nations committed to a coalition of action. We have a coalition, but many of those nations are participating in such a way that they’re not creating actionable efforts against ISIL. I don’t believe this is an effort to contain ISIL. I think there should be an effort to destroy them.
Williams: Boots on the ground versus air strikes?
Menendez: You’re going to need, at some point, and it doesn’t have to be U.S. troops, but you’re going to need at some point some ground effort because if all you do is strike from the air you cannot take grounds just from striking from the air.
Williams: Is the idea to take ground away?
Menendez: It is ultimately to constantly squeeze, what they call as the pseudo-Caliphate and at the end of the day ensure that they did not have territory for which they already have vast resources to command and control to generate attacks, not only in that region, but in other parts of the world. This is where the community of nations, particularly those nations within the region who have an immediate challenge, have to participate in a more vigorous way. When I see Kurdish fighters succeeding as they are, seems to me that we should be arming them directly versus going through Iraq to arm them and what not. They have been successful at reclaiming territory.
Williams: The president is meeting with President Francois Hollande for the first time since the Paris attacks. He’s meeting with him tomorrow about a coalition. How do we get the rest of the coalition to actually have a full partnership in working on this?
Menendez: Well I think Paris unfortunately was a game changer in galvanizing the rest of Europe as well as other partners. We see that Prime Minister Cameron is going before the parliament to get authorization to participate in actionable events against ISIL. President Hollande is obviously promoting this in his trips to the United States as well as elsewhere. So what I think is that now’s the time to galvanize this community of nations into that coalition of action, and action is more than training or providing arms. It means taking direct assaults against ISIL, and more robustly assisting those on the ground to ultimately achieve the goal.
Williams: What about the role of the locals? The people who live in the Middle East or Persian Gulf states. What is their role and how can they be persuaded to engage?
Menendez: Well our gulf partners need to be a big part of this, as well as Turkey who is a border that obviously is incredibly important to them. They’ve advocated for a no-fly zone. Well, fine. Are you willing to put Turkish troops on the ground in that safe no-fly zone? Because otherwise a no-fly zone doesn’t guarantee you anything either. And to our Arab partners who were engaged at one point, but then turned their attention to Yemen, we need to tell that the collective challenge that we have is against ISIL. And so I think that this takes American leadership to galvanize these community of nations in an effort that can really strike at ISIL and Rocca, which is their alleged capital, and in terms of their ability to disrupt their territorial ability to ultimately promote actions throughout the world.
Williams: You have access to intelligence that the rest of us don’t. I know you can’t tell us what most of that is, but can you tell us if ISIL is getting stronger?
Menendez: ISIL is the best funded terrorist group in the world, and while it has lost some territory based upon our actions, it still has vast land between Iraq and Syria and pockets elsewhere where it largely can operate and do so with impunity, at least at this point in time. That cannot continue. In that respect it needs to be challenged in a direct way so that having a concern about an attack here in the United States, or our allies abroad, is less likely to happen because we have disrupted them.