ORONO, Maine — The United States needs to take a stronger leadership position in war-torn Syria, it must do more to assist refugees fleeing civil unrest in the Middle East and it should stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in the region, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen said Tuesday.
Cohen, 75, is a Bangor native who served 24 years in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and was Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. He was in town for a moderated discussion titled, “America’s Response to Global Instability,” with retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, former supreme allied commander in Europe, and former ambassador Nicholas Burns, who also is former under secretary of state for political affairs, the State Department’s third-ranking post. The discussion, part of the William S. Cohen Lecture series, was moderated by Felicia Knight, president of the Knight Canney Group, a public relations firm.
Cohen, a Republican, said U.S. leaders need to decide what role the country is going to play in Syria and the Middle East and decide quickly.
“We’ve been slowly disengaging in that area,” Cohen told UMaine students, staff and local residents who gathered at the Collins Center for the Arts for the biennial lecture. “We’re not in Iraq” and have removed most of the troops in Afghanistan.
“There is a perception that the United States is weakening,” Cohen said. “Other countries are looking at us as pulling away.”
Some are asking, “Where is the United States? There is great consternation [and a] loss of confidence,” he said later.
Cohen’s advice: “Be prudent but don’t hesitate. We’re in, we’re out, we’re partially out. We don’t want to get involved in Syria. I don’t think things will get better until we have a plan.”
Burns and Ralston said the Obama administration has been too passive in dealing with the region.
“We’ve pulled back so much we’ve led to a vacuum of power in Syria,” Burns told the audience. “[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin filled the vacuum in the worst possible way. He’s now pouring gasoline on the fire.”
While the U.S. and Russia have partnered against the Islamic State at times, the two powers have taken different stances in the four-year-old Syrian war, with Russia making border advances and the U.S. taking a bystander’s role as Islamic State control spreads, said Ralston, a 37-year Air Force veteran who was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1996 to 2000.
With the U.S. leading a coalition that has been been bombing Islamic State locations in both Syria and Iraq in recent months and Russia recently joining the air fray in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the area is an even bigger problem for the U.S., Ralston said.
“I can’t think of anything more dangerous to the situation than having Russian fighter pilots flying over Syria,” the retired general said. “Think of how bad things can get if we shot down a Russian plane.”
Both Burns and Ralston said without anyone to take the lead, the presence of both the Russians and the Islamic State will only get larger.
“The absence of leadership is a problem,” Ralston said.
All three men said the U.S. should help with the estimated 12 million refugees from the region, and Cohen and Ralston went further by suggesting that a safe haven along the Syrian border be created for families that are fleeing.
“We should have a safe zone and we should have had it 3 or 4 years ago,” Cohen said. “Decisions have to be made. We’re dithering. While Putin is moving in … we’re debating. The loss of American leadership will have dividends that will need to be paid by future generations.”
Cohen said one big mistake made by the George W. Bush administration was believing that “democracy would flourish” after the toppling of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. He said mistakes made by the Obama administration include removing U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan before replacement troops were trained. A principal cause of the rise of the Islamic State, which now controls large areas of Iraq and neighboring Syria, is because the U.S. underestimated the “the historic hatred” that is based on actions from the past, Cohen said.
“We’re still paying for those mistakes,” he said.
Some former Iraqi army officers, members of the Sunni Muslim minority who say they have been marginalized by the Shiite-led government backed by Western powers, are senior strategists in the Islamic State, according to the panelists.
None on the panel suggested sending U.S. troops into the region, but instead suggested training forces to oppose the tyranny.
“We’re going to have to arm and fund a rebel action … with money from the Arab world, the Sunni world,” said Burns, who was a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and Greece.
“The Islamic State will not be defeated” with just bombs, he said.
Much of the world also is watching the U.S. budget process, so Cohen also had advice for Congress — learn to compromise.
“Our political dysfunctionality has serious consequences, and that affects what we do in Syria, in Russia, China and other areas of the world,” Cohen said.
Leaders need to find a “consensus on policy” because without it enemies of the state are “emboldened” by the lack of leadership.
The lecture series is a function of UMaine’s William S. Cohen Institute for Leadership and Public Service, formerly known as the Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce, which was established in 1997. The Cohen Center was founded to bring distinguished speakers with informed perspectives on matters related to international policy and commerce to the University of Maine.
Cohen, a former UMaine business faculty member, donated his collection of papers chronicling his congressional career to UMaine’s Fogler Library when the center was established, and in January 2001, Cohen donated the papers from his tenure as Secretary of Defense to the university.
On a lighter note, when Cohen took the podium on Tuesday the first thing he did was thank UMaine president Susan J. Hunter for introducing him.
“Thank you, madam President,” Cohen said, adding: “It’s nice to say that isn’t it?”
Later, during a short news conference with local media, Cohen said he believes that Hillary Clinton will “very likely” earn the Democratic nomination, but “on the Republican side, I still think it’s up for grabs. I don’t think the frontrunners of today will be the frontrunners of tomorrow.”