Eliot Engel: Don’t need to talk about boots on the ground ‘right now’

The ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said he supports President Obama’s outline to combat the Islamic State terrorist group and that he doesn’t see a need for American troops on the ground at the moment.

“There are only bad choices left, but the worst choice would be to do nothing,” Rep. Eliot Engel, New York Democrat, said Monday on MSNBC. “I think we’re doing something, and I support what the president is trying to do.”

“I think we should just continue along this plan and see [where] it brings us,” he said. “Down the road if we need to shift to a change we’ll do it, but I don’t think we need to talk about boots on the ground right now.”

Mr. Obama has outlined a plan to arm and train Syrian rebels and expand airstrikes in the region to combat the terrorist group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, and has said sending in U.S. ground troops is not part of the equation. Secretary of State John Kerry has been traveling to the Middle East and Paris in recent days trying to shore up international support for the president’s outline.

Presented with comments from Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, calling the idea of never having boots on the ground to defeat the group in Syria “fantasy,” Mr. Engel said that “we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.”

“Right now, there’s no boots on the ground — there will be airstrikes and other things that we’re going to do. It’s absolutely imperative that we get the Arab states as partners working with us,” he said. “This cannot be seen as a western invasion of another country for regime change. We don’t want to go back to what we had in Iraq where we had all these boots on the ground; it’s a different situation now.”