Sound The Trumpet : House Foreign Affairs Chairman: 'I Met Last Night With Leaders of the Free Syrian Army'

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“House Foreign Affairs Chairman: 'I Met Last Night With Leaders of the Free Syrian Army'”
by Arutz Sheva
September 10th, 2014

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he supports President Obama's anticipated plan to confront ISIS in both Syria and Iraq, and he believes U.S. support for the Free Syrian Army will be part of the strategy.

"I met last night with leaders here from the Free Syrian Army -- we had a late conversation. You know, we forget that there's a third faction in that struggle," Royce told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday.

"For the last three years, the Free Syrian Army has been fighting ISIS on the ground, and they've been asking us for support, for weapons. And I think that probably will be part of the president's plan.

"We should have been supporting the (Iraqi) Kurds with the anti-tank missiles that they needed; we should have been supporting the Free Syrian Army. They've both been asking for this. I think we'll hear rolled-out a plan to do that, probably, from the president."

President Obama is outlining his plan to confront ISIS this week -- to Congress on Tuesday and to the nation on Wednesday.

Royce said Obama has had the "authority" to order air strikes, but he "deferred on this," especially over the last seven months as ISIS advanced into Iraq, taking city after city:

"In each case...there was a request by our embassy in Iraq, from us on the (Foreign Affairs) Committee -- be decisive, hit these targets, you know, you have the authority to do it as president of the United States, and we haven't done it.

"So now we're to the point where there is a consensus, but it's a little late in the game because they've taken a lot of territory, and they've got this feeling now that they're sort of invincible. They need to be knocked back hard in order to send the message to the insurgents -- far from invincible, the war is now going to be taken back to them. They're not going to kill Americans with impunity."

Royce said it's particularly important to knock out the camps in Syria where foreign fighters are training with ISIS so they can take the fight back to their home countries:

"I think what I want to hear ( is that the focus is going to be on the training base...where ISIS brings in these foreign fighters and gives them this capability, because it's that safe haven, it's that sanctuary, that is used to prepare the ISIS fighters from all over the world now, most of them are not from the Middle East, to attack not just these targets, but also to go back and attack Britain, or potentially Australia or the United States, you know, you hear these threats. And I think getting at that base is most important, knocking out those camps."

In hindsight, Royce says the Obama administration should have acted sooner.

"One of the missed opportunities here is had we used air power when these (ISIS) columns were on the march, out in the open desert, you could have obliterated, you know, these columns. And let's get back to that point, they have a base of operation, they have munitions depots there, they're doing their training there -- hit that target."

Royce said the Foreign Affairs Committee will "bore into the details" of Obama's plan next week.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday that the U.S. has been "providing both nonmilitary and military support" to the Free Syrian Army for more than year, "after we had established some relationships and had the opportunity to vet these individuals and get a better sense about what their intentions actually were."

Earnest said the administration also has "sought to increase or ramp up that assistance," without providing weapons to the very terrorists it wants to crush.

"So there was a question of who exactly was included in the Syrian opposition and which of those elements were interested in putting in place a government that actually reflected the will and diversity of the Syrian people and which of those were members of the opposition who were actually extremists who were hoping to use the power vacuum that's been created by this civil war in Syria to try to carry out their own vision of an Islamic caliphate in this region."

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13