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Washington • Fresh off a trip to the Middle East, Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, says President Barack Obama has been remiss in dealing with threats in the region and the United States now must act to tamp down a strengthened terrorist group whose advance could erase any gains made over more than a decade of war.
"The president has had a rough summer and I don't mean to pile on but there's no question that we are reaping what we sowed from policies of the last four or five years," Stewart said Wednesday after visiting Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco with other members of Congress to hear from leaders on the ground.
Stewart's comments come as Obama tries to deal with a burgeoning presence by Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria who have killed civilians, beheaded journalists and marched within miles of Baghdad on their push to establish an Islamic state. Obama was expected Wednesday night to lay out goals to curtail the group's influence and the violence in northern Iraq and Syria.
Stewart, a former U.S. Air Force major, says Obama made a mistake in withdrawing troops from Iraq and not pressuring the Iraqi government into maintaining a stable, and well-trained military presence.
"No question about it," Stewart said. "And I don't think anybody disagrees with that."
The Utah congressman, who was joined on the trip by House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said America needs to boost air strikes against the militant group, which calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, cut off the export of black-market oil the group is using to fund its campaign and arm allies and proxies in the region to fight back against the jihadi fighters — actions Stewart says Obama has been too slow to make.
"I don't know that you can make up for it, but it doesn't matter, you still got to do the best you can with the current situation and there are things he could do," Stewart said. "I think there's a building consensus with the American people" to take action.
A CNN/ORC poll released this week shows 76 percent of Americans favor airstrikes against the Islamic group while 62 percent approve giving military aid to forces fighting it.
Stewart's views appear to align with those of some of his Republican Utah colleagues.
"You have to confront it head on," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz. "There is a clear and present danger and it must be addressed."
Chaffetz says Obama should swallow his pride and admit that he was wrong that terrorist groups were waning in power. It's past time to take them on."
"History is going to show that the president was more than a year late to this threat. Nevertheless, he's got to be resolute and crystal clear," Chaffetz says. "No more red lines that once crossed, he does nothing. The credibility of the United States has been severely hampered under President Obama."
Sen. Orrin Hatch says the administration has for too long failed to offer any strategic plan to combat the terrorist organization.
"Sadly, this lack of vision is representative of the Obama Administration's reactionary foreign policy agenda and its failure to have any overarching strategy in place to deal with unrest in the region, whether that is in Syria, Libya, Israel or elsewhere," Hatch said. "This lack of American leadership in the Middle East has encouraged others — such as ISIS — to fill that void and we should have seen the impact that would have."
Obama's speech isn't going to solve anything unless it's backed by a well-conceived plan, says Stewart.
"That's the problem we've seen in the past," he says. "The president and others have spoken on this for years but they've been willing to engage with it. Another speech doesn't do anything; we have to be willing to now do the hard work of trying to eliminate a real threatening situation."
Stewart says his trip to the Middle East was surprising in that American allies in Egypt, Israel and Jordan were questioning whether the United States would step up to the challenge. During one session in Turkey, Stewart said he leaned over to the former commander of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, to ask: "There just isn't any good news here, is there?"
Stewart declined to say what the general's private response was, but for the congressman, there wasn't much positive to engage.