by John McCain
The President was reported to have decided on military action, and the strikes were thought to be imminent when he abruptly announced in the Rose Garden that he would ask Congress for authorization first. The day before, British prime minister David Cameron had lost a vote in Parliament authorizing military action against Syria. Americans were war-weary. Republicans were restive and not often disposed to vote for the President’s policies whatever they were. Lindsey and I released a statement on the day of his announcement, August 31, urging a military response that would help change momentum on the battlefield, and saying we wouldn’t support a few isolated cruise missile strikes, the damage from which could be quickly repaired and forgotten.
The President asked us to the White House on the following Monday, Labor Day. It was just Lindsey and me, the President, and National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The plan they laid out to us was surprisingly substantial. The strikes from carrier aircraft and cruise missiles would not be lasting but they would be big enough to degrade Assad’s military capabilities. They were going to hit airfields, runways, SCUD batteries, and command and control, seriously degrading Assad’s airpower, all the targets they had been insisting for years couldn’t be touched without taking out the regime’s air defenses. They were also going to upgrade assistance to the FSA, providing it weapons it had long needed, and train them far more seriously. They weren’t prepared to create a no-fly zone, but I was satisfied that the plan would change the war’s momentum, and I welcomed it. We held an impromptu press conference on the White House driveway, and I said the consequences of a vote against authorization would be “catastrophic.” “A weak response,” I added, “would also be catastrophic.” Without disclosing details, I intimated that the strikes the President was contemplating would be serious rather than cosmetic.
We had been told the attacks were likely to launch in two days. We both got a call from General Dempsey a day later saying they had been delayed. The authorization never received a vote by the full Senate. It was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 4 by a vote of 10 to 7, both the ayes and nays were bipartisan. I had amended the resolution to include authorization for a use of force sufficient to change momentum on the battlefield. The President called it all off not long after. An aside by Secretary of State John Kerry that military action wouldn’t be necessary if Assad surrendered his chemical weapons arsenal led to an offer from Sergei Lavrov to broker an agreement with Assad. Assad agreed to do it, and to join the Chemical Weapons Convention. He was lying, of course. The administration insisted the deal was a breakthrough, and commended it with every load of chemical weapons surrendered. But Assad retained some of his arsenal, and used chemical weapons again on his people. Neither Lindsey nor I received a heads-up that the President had changed his mind.
It was the worst decision of his presidency, I believe, and its consequences are felt to this day. His administration’s credibility in the region was lost and with some of the region’s worst actors. It was badly damaged everywhere, really. It shook the confidence of our allies and emboldened our adversaries, no one more so than Vladimir Putin. For the next couple years, the administration’s policy for Syria was reduced to pleading with Russia to help convince Syria to negotiate a settlement to the war. Lavrov and Putin would string us along, and never deliver.
In September 2015, Putin jumped into the war with both feet. Russian air strikes on rebel targets in northwest Syria were the first act in Russia’s decisive intervention in the conflict. Henceforth, Russian bombers would serve as Assad’s air force. Moscow maintained it had intervened to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups fighting in Syria. But their attacks were usually focused on the FSA and other rebel militias that are part of the moderate opposition. Their intervention turned the tide of the war in the regime’s favor. Russian airpower, used to devastating effect on rebel-held cities such as Palmyra and Aleppo, was indispensable to retaking the ruins of those ancient metropolises. Moreover, Putin has used his bombers as instruments of terror deliberately targeting hospitals and school rescue efforts, dropping cluster and barrel bombs, cheap, unguided munitions, indiscriminately in civilian areas. Last December, Russia’s defense minister confirmed that Russia would maintain permanent air and naval bases in Syria, giving the Russians a military presence in the Middle East they haven’t had since Anwar al-Sadat kicked them out of Egypt. In December 2016, rebel forces in Aleppo negotiated a cease-fire with the Russians to allow them to evacuate civilians and themselves from the destroyed city.
ISIS had begun seizing territory in northern and eastern Syria in early 2013, taking its declared capital, Raqqa, in March of that year. The administration refused to order air strikes against ISIS camps in Iraq in the fall of 2013, when the Iraqis were urging us to, and when ISIS fighters were more in the open. In January 2014, they took Fallujah and Ramadi and then Mosul in June, which seemed to shock the administration into action. Russia’s and Assad’s insistence to the contrary, the regime and its ally didn’t concentrate their attacks on ISIS, but on other rebel militias, which by the middle of 2014 were fighting ISIS in some areas more than they were the regime. President Obama announced in September 2014 his intention to bomb ISIS sites in Syria in concert with an international coalition, and to, at last, begin providing arms, including antitank weapons, to the FSA. U.S. Special Forces deployed to northern Syria in October 2015 to advise the Kurds’ Syrian Democratic Forces and other forces fighting ISIS. By the end of last year, the coalition had launched nearly twelve thousand air strikes. As many as two thousand special operators and Marines were in Syria, and it appears that many of them will be there for a while. I went back to northern Syria in February of last year to meet with our Syrian Kurd allies who would bear the brunt of the fighting to take Raqqa, and with some of the brave Americans helping them. It would be the last time I shared the company of soldiers in the field risking their lives for a just cause, and as ever they were an antidote for despair.
ISIS was forced out of all its occupied territory in Syria and Iraq, though thousands of ISIS fighters are still present in both countries. Last April, Assad again used sarin gas, this time in Idlib Province, and Russia again used its veto to protect its client from condemnation and sanction by the U.N. Security Council. President Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on the Syrian airfield where the planes that delivered the sarin were based. It was a minimal attack, but better than nothing. A week before, I had condemned statements by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who had explicitly declined to maintain what had been the official U.S. position that a settlement of the Syrian civil war had to include Assad’s removal from power. “Once again, U.S. policy in Syria is being presented piecemeal in press statements,” I complained, “without any definition of success, let alone a realistic plan to achieve it.”
As this book goes to the publisher, there are reports of a clash between U.S. forces in eastern Syria and Russian “volunteers,” in which hundreds of Russians were said to have been killed. If true, it’s a dangerous turn of events, but one caused entirely by Putin’s reckless conduct in the world, allowed if not encouraged by the repeated failures of the U.S. and the West to act with resolve to prevent his assaults against our interests and values.
In President Obama’s last year in office, at his invitation, he and I spent a half hour or so alone, discussing very frankly what I considered his policy failures, and he believed had been sound and necessary decisions. Much of that conversation concerned Syria. No minds were changed in the encounter, but I appreciated his candor as I hoped he appreciated mine, and I respected the sincerity of his convictions. Yet I still believe his approach to world leadership, however thoughtful and well intentioned, was negligent, and encouraged our allies to find ways to live without us, and our adversaries to try to fill the vacuums our negligence created. And those trends continue in reaction to the thoughtless America First ideology of his successor. There are senior officials in government who are trying
to mitigate those effects. But I worry that we are at a turning point, a hinge of history, and the decisions made in the last ten years and the decisions made tomorrow might be closing the door on the era of the American-led world order. I hope not, and it certainly isn’t too late to reverse that direction. But my time in that fight has concluded. I have nothing but hope left to invest in the work of others to make the future better than the past.
As of today, as the Syrian war continues, more than 400,000 people have been killed, many of them civilians. More than five million have fled the country and more than six million have been displaced internally. A hundred years from now, Syria will likely be remembered as one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the twenty-first century, and an example of human savagery at its most extreme. But it will be remembered, too, for the invincibility of human decency and the longing for freedom and justice evident in the courage and selflessness of the White Helmets and the soldiers fighting for their country’s freedom from tyranny and terrorists. In that noblest of human conditions is the eternal promise of the Arab Spring, which was engulfed in flames and drowned in blood, but will, like all springs, come again.
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
Fighting the Good Fight
(with and against Ted Kennedy)
IT WAS THE SUMMER OF 1993, and a new administration was still finding its footing. I had won my first reelection to the Senate, putting to rest doubts about my long-term prospects in the Senate that had arisen during the “Keating Five” scandal. A few Democrats had come to the Senate floor to speak in support of the new President, Bill Clinton’s, budget. Several more were there to defend Clinton’s surgeon general nominee, Joycelyn Elders, whose history of controversial remarks on abortion, the sexual activity of minors, and Republicans had, unsurprisingly, generated opposition in our caucus to her nomination. Barbara Boxer was there, speaking in her usual lacerating style, as were several others, including Carol Moseley Braun, the newly arrived senator from Illinois, who had beaten popular “Al the Pal” Dixon in the Democratic primary in 1992, and gone on to beat my friend and Reagan administration alumnus the late Rich Williamson in the general. The crux of the Democrats’ complaint was that Republicans were filibustering the nomination even though the debate on her nomination was only a few hours old.
Republicans, feeling themselves unfairly abused, had started lining up to fight back. Don Nickles from Oklahoma was there, as was my closest Senate friend at the time, Phil Gramm. The Republican whip, Trent Lott, was there, too. I was just crossing the floor on my way out of the chamber. I hadn’t paid any attention to the debate. I don’t remember if I was even aware of the issue in contention. Nevertheless, I sensed the rising temperature in the room, and the irritation of my fellow Republicans, and I’m a sucker for a fight. One of the reasons I’d become close friends with Phil was because he was quick on his feet, and especially good in a really lively debate.
I stopped near the door to the Republican cloakroom where my administrative assistant was standing, and asked him what the fuss was about. He was starting to explain when Ted Kennedy interrupted Trent, which got my attention. I had been aware that Ted was sitting at his desk when I entered the chamber. You were always aware when Ted was on the floor. He had a booming voice and laugh that could be heard in private conversations with colleagues, often over the sound of whichever speaker was addressing the Senate at the time. He had a presence you noticed the moment he arrived, and a reputation for being a ferocious adversary in a floor fight, bombastic, to be sure, but his cutting sarcasm, his mockery is what you most feared. He was one of the most experienced members of the body, expert in its procedures and customs, and he always had one of the most talented staffs in Congress. Going up against him was never easy or lightly undertaken. As a rule, I tried to keep my distance from him. I hadn’t wanted to make an enemy of him, but I also didn’t want to fall under the spell of his camaraderie. He was good company, funny and hard to resist when he was in full-out charm mode. He could get you to agree to something you didn’t want to do or at least something you sensed wasn’t in your best political interests. But this, too, was part of his reputation: whatever he promised you in exchange for your help, he delivered. He kept his word, which is the Senate’s principal virtue, or was for many of the years I served there.
I believe he had already spoken on the Elders nomination that day and was just reading papers at his desk. Until he interrupted Trent, he had seemed to be ignoring the debate as I had been. Senate procedure allows you to interrupt a senator who has the floor as long as the purpose of the interruption is to ask a question. In practice, the rule is used to interject criticism or an insult with a question mark punctuating the abuse, like the way contestants on the game show Jeopardy! have to frame their answers in the form of a question. Mr. President, will my friend yield for a question? Can I ask my friend if he understands his position is the devil’s own work and will surely destroy the Republic?
As soon as Kennedy started interrupting to ask his question, I stomped down to my desk, picked up the mic, and started calling for “regular order,” which demands that the presiding officer recognize the speaker who had the floor before the interruption. Ted kept asking questions, and I kept demanding regular order, both of us getting heated. Even after we sat down for a pause, we were both committed, and itching to get back into it.
Things had died down a bit when Moseley Braun sought recognition and began excoriating Republicans in personal terms. She compared Republicans to Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. Don Nickles interrupted her and asked if she understood Rule 19, which states:
No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.
This time it was Kennedy who demanded “regular order.” Nickles responded that he wasn’t making a motion to invoke the rule, only asking Moseley Braun if she was aware of it. Kennedy just ignored him and kept yelling “Regular order, regular order!” I shot to my feet, and demanded the same. “Regular order, Mr. President. Regular order!” Kennedy addressed me directly, “That’s what we’re asking, regular order.” Nodding at Nickles, “He has to ask her a question.” “I did,” Nickles replied. “Regular order!” I insisted. “Regular order!” Ted shouted back. Anyone unfamiliar with Senate procedure and the behavior of senators, which is probably all but a tiny fraction of the American population, wouldn’t have had any idea what the fight was about. The debate had become a free-for-all, ungoverned by Senate rules. The presiding officer looked confused and a little scared as he struggled to regain control. He was a recent addition to the Senate’s ranks, appointed to finish Al Gore’s unexpired term. An unfamiliar face to most of us, he would leave the Senate not long after with the same status. That day, he looked as if he would have liked to have gone back to Tennessee right then. Moseley Braun seemed bewildered, too; having somehow lost her right to the floor without relinquishing it, she had no idea how or if she should get it back.
I guess Ted and I felt our ability to address each other directly was too encumbered by the intercessions of our colleagues and the formalities of addressing the chair. Neither of us signaled the other. But in the very same instant, we both put down our mics, and charged to the well of the Senate. There, standing inches apart, we let each other have it in personal and profane terms. Reporters seated in the gallery above us leaned over the rail, straining to hear our unamplified exchange. A few of them caught the F word lending emphasis to the insults hurled back and forth. Our behavior was certainly unbecoming of senators and unworthy of the Senate, a place I have come to love.
After a minute or two we realized we were being observed from above, and retired to our respective corners. We stayed engaged in the debate for the time being, giving actual statements on the nomination rather than interrupting each other. But as things became a little less lively, our enthusiasm waned correspondingly.
We left the floor at the same time through the same door. Ted threw an arm across my shoulder, and we both started laughing as we complimented each other’s combativeness. It wasn’t our first time sparring. We had exchanged a few shots before in Armed Services Committee hearings and members’ meetings. But this one was memorable for how carried away we had gotten, and even more so for the fact that I think it might have been the first time we had made each other laugh.
We hadn’t become fast friends or allies. We were just friendlier with each other after that, and respected each other more. It would be several more years before we started working closely together on a few issues, after I had lost the Republican nomination to George Bush in 2000. I had returned hoping my newly acquired national reputation would increase my influence in the Senate, as Ted had returned to the Senate in 1980 after losing the nomination to Jimmy Carter determined to make the most of his opportunities there. I wanted to get some things done in that Congress, particularly campaign finance reform, an issue that had been central to my campaign, and Ted was willing to help where he agreed. He was also, for a time, intent on convincing me to switch parties. The Senate was evenly divided, fifty-fifty, a fairly rare occurrence. Because Republicans had won the White House, and the vice president can break tie votes in the Senate, we were technically in the majority. A single defection would have given control to the Democrats. So, although we were friendly, Ted’s interest in my political conversion wasn’t exactly fraternal.
His relationship with Carter, never close to begin with, was reportedly permanently icy after their 1980 contest, each party nursing resentments. Maybe Ted thought I felt similarly about my victorious opponent, and saw an opening to take advantage of our disaffection. Various enticements were offered, including at some point the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, joined the discussions. I listened and was flattered, but insisted in every conversation that my differences with Democrats were more numerous than those I had with current Republican orthodoxy. After a while they relented.