Buchanan: War Party won’t get the war they want in Syria

(VERO BEACH, FLA) Speaking on Laura Ingraham’s nationally syndicated radio show Monday morning, the former presidential candidate said lawmakers advocating for armed conflict in Syria, such as Senators Macro Rubio, John McCain, and Lindsay Graham, would not get the war they wanted if the US entered that conflict zone.

“It’s McCain and Graham and Marco Rubio — the war party,” Buchanan said. “But let me say this, Laura — my view is they’re not going to get the war they want.”

Buchanan went on to say he doesn’t believe President Trump will actually deploy ground troops to Syria, for such a move would “consume his presidency.”

“If Donald Trump the president takes us into Syria’s civil war and he’s already made the first strike — it will consume his presidency,” Buchanan said. “And the sense I get this morning and listening to some of these folks on yesterday’s show is that, ‘Don’t worry, this is just a one-off. We’re not going into Syria. The enemy is still ISIS, as indeed it is if you take a look at what happened in Egypt yesterday, 47 dead and 100 injured.”

Buchanan added:

“So I think the war party is going to be frustrated because I cannot believe that Donald Trump on second thought is going to plunge us into Syria, which he told us again and again and again would be an act of folly — that our enemy is ISIS and our enemy is al-Qaeda and that we should finish them off,” he added. “Then we’re necessarily going to have to work with the folks who did most of the heavy lifting in finishing them off.”

Buchanan also shared his belief that a direct military confrontation in Syria which did not explicitly target ISIS would start a regional war with Russia and leave a detrimental power vacuum in the region.

“If you try to overthrow Assad then you will be at war, the Russians will fight, the Iranians will fight, Hezbollah will fight, obviously Assad and his army and Air Force will fight, we will be fighting all four of them as well as ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria,” Buchanan said. “You tell me how we win that war and who we put into power after we have defeated all six of them.”