America is in trouble domestically and internationally, Republican Ohio Sen. Rob Portman told
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum" Wednesday, and despite partisan differences, the country needs to unite.
"At the water's edge, we ought to be sure that partisanship is minimized and that we come together as a country and that's what's happening now, my hope is that we will end this continuing resolution that we're about to pass, give the president what he's asked for in terms of some funding for some training which many of us called for a couple years ago to be able to fight ISIS on the ground," Portman said.
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"Not American ground troops, but in this case the Free Syrian Army and maybe others and we should try to come together as Americans, but we've got to have a consistent message and we have to have a strategy. The one thing that my constituents are looking for is what's the plan? We know this group is a terrorist group that we have to stop and yet we do not have a comprehensive plan to do so. So we're looking for a plan. In the meantime, I hope our country can come together as one as we did after 9/11. You remember on 9/12 we were all together as Americans. Not Republicans, Democrats, independents and we've got to get back to that in this fight against ISIS."
Portman, who sits on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the situation with the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Middle East is both a national security and humanitarian crisis that President Barack Obama has allowed to snowball to the point that
getting it under control has become extremely challenging.
"It's a huge problem," Portman said. "If you look at what they've had done the horrific beheadings we all know about, but it's well beyond that there's a humanitarian crisis there. They're actually telling Christians in Iraq as you know, either convert, pay a fine that they cannot afford or face execution, die by the sword as they say, and it's not just Christians, it's other religious minorities, in fact it's Muslims. Shia and Sunni alike and then finally as you say, they're very media savvy and you know very focused on what's going on around the globe and they've made it clear that they intend to attack the West and that includes us because we are in their eyes the enemy.
"So we have to face up to it, this is a situation that none of us wished for and the president has tried to wish it away. In many respects the administration has been at war with itself and you saw that in the hearing yesterday. You heard General Dempsey say, you know it may be necessary for us to have at least some special forces on the ground there and that's not what the president is saying."
Because of his "lack of a plan," Portman said, Obama has handicapped the United States' ability to respond to the violent terror group trying to form an all Islamic state, known as a caliphate. America's role in world been diminished over the past four or five years, according to Portman, "to the point our allies don't trust and our enemies don't fear us, as they should."
Had Obama listened to the advice of many military advisers and Republicans to leave a residual force in Iraq, ISIS would not have been able to amass its current number of troops, estimated at 30,000, Portman said.
"That group could've been stopped . . . but now that we're in that situation, it's incumbent upon us to figure this out as Republicans and Democrats and be sure that we are supporting the American people and their security and our national security," he said.
Portman is hopeful that the November midterm elections will return the GOP to power in the Senate so that the country can begin to address the myriad issues it's facing.
"I want to change the Senate and it's not because I feel like we just need to change it for the Senate's sake we need to change it for America's sake," he said. "Some of these issues had been left to languish too long. We have record levels of debt, our deficit continues to be well beyond what anybody thinks it's acceptable it's bad for the economy and then these issues like reforming the tax code, I mean let's get busy with it if we don't we're going to see more companies and jobs and investment going overseas.
Washington is falling down on the job. We're not doing what we should be doing here in Washington, D.C. and that, to me, means we ought to change the leadership here in the Senate. We ought to put forward pro-growth, pro-jobs legislation. We ought to deal with the deficit and restore America's place in the world because that leads to more peace and stability."
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