Define foreign policy goal

With a Republican majority in the Senate, it is probable that John McCain will become the chair of the Armed Services Committee. He has insisted that American ground troops must be sent into Syria and Iraq to fight the Islamic State, calling Mr. Obama's air-strikes-only strategy "a disaster."

While I agree with Sen. McCain that we must have a presence on the ground for the air campaign to be successful, I contend that we should be very careful how deeply we become involved in this new Middle Eastern war. I recall that when General Samuel Williams was Head of the U.S. Advisory Group in Vietnam, he said, "We have exactly 342 men *.... It would be a breeze if we had more." When I arrived in Vietnam we had 550,000 men in country, and the only breeze was a typhoon coming in from the South China Sea.

Before we get more deeply involved our new adventure, we need to precisely define our ultimate goal. We say we want to remove Assad from power in Syria. Yet every time we bomb ISIS or one of the other opposition groups, we help to keep him in his present position.

Assuming we do set a goal, how much are we willing to pay for achieving it in terms of time, money and, most importantly, the lives of U.S. military personnel? For almost 70 years we have had troops in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Are we ready for another such commitment?

JOHN PIEPHO, Cape Girardeau