'From my perspective ISIS is a national security threat,' Menendez says. Dems unite around Obama on Iraq

Senate Democrats are starting to unite behind President Barack Obama’s limited plan to reengage in Iraq in an effort to prevent the country falling to militants.

Democrats from a broad ideological spectrum backed Obama’s decision to send 300 military advisers to Iraq to prevent the march of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant into Baghdad. The move increasingly positions the United States to strike at ISIL — if Obama and his national security team decide it’s necessary.


Though Democrats have deep-seated regrets over the 2003 decision to go to war with Iraq — a vote that still divides the party — some of them placed their trust in the president after his speech on Thursday. Obama also said that Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Iraq and officials continue to keep on the table, targeted military strikes against the ISIL in both Syria and Iraq.

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“We have to think about our national security interests first and foremost and from my perspective ISIS is a national security threat,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who backed Obama’s urging of political reform in Iraq as a prerequisite of military assistance. “There isn’t any air power in the world that can take care of the problem of sectarian divisions.”

Senate Democrats actually did not watch the president’s speech on Thursday, instead talking energy policy over lunch.

But several hours after the president’s speech, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) gave his full-throated endorsement to Obama’s plan.

“I support President Obama’s decision to deploy a very limited number of advisers to Iraq for a non-combat training mission. This decision gives America the flexibility to take precise action against threats to our national security and keeps Iraqi authorities accountable for maintaining the security of their own country,” Reid said.

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Not every Democrat agrees that if the president decides to strike ISIL, he can do so under existing authority granted last decade over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Democrats broadly said Obama was right to be cautious about engaging again in Iraq, worried over the potential for the U.S. role to escalate.

“I appreciated the president’s sobriety,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

Even members that voted against a strike on Syrian forces accused of gassing citizens are siding with Obama’s engagement in Iraq.

“The U.S. can’t ignore what is happening, and the president is right to be proposing some limited amount of military assistance,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “The stakes in Iraq are much greater than the stakes for the U.S. in Syria.”

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Obama’s remarks even assuaged some Republicans who had been itching for Obama to more clearly lay out the steps that he was considering. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) said he was “glad that [Obama is] finally taking action” while Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said the administration seemed “focused on [Iraq] in the appropriate way.”

“What the president said today is a much better place to be than we were 24 hours ago,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). “There’s the beginning of the outlines that I hope will be a concrete plan that we can all rally around.”

Even Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) seemed in better spirits, just a few hours after taking the floor to blister Obama — with McCain accusing him of playing golf while “Iraq burns.”

“We welcome President Obama’s articulation of the U.S. national security interests that are at stake in Iraq, especially the threat posed by ISIS. The President’s willingness to send U.S. military advisers to Iraq is a positive step, but more needs to be done,” Graham and McCain said on Thursday afternoon.

Still, Republicans continued to push for quicker action than Democrats seemed to be able to stomach. Broadly speaking, the best thing they heard from Obama is that he’s moving with a measured pace before deciding to bomb the ISIL in Iraq.

“I think extreme caution is the word of the day,” said Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), adding that he did not yet think airstrikes were a good step. “The president’s [proposal of] up to 300 advisers in a non-combat role, adding to the advisers that are already there, is a reasonable approach.”