McCain: Obama would be impeached if he puts ‘boots on the ground’ in Syria

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday that President Obama would face impeachment if he put “American boots on the ground” in Syria.

{mosads}“No one wants American boots on the ground,” McCain said, according to a video obtained by CBS News. “Nor will there be American boots on the ground because there would be an impeachment of the president if they did that.”

McCain made the comments at a town-hall meeting in Phoenix, where he faced fierce opposition from his constituents over his support of a U.S. military strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria.

The Republican hawk has said he would not support a Senate resolution that doesn’t do enough to degrade the Assad regime’s chemical weapons operations and offered an amendment to significantly expand President Obama’s authority for a military strike. But he laid down a clear marker as to how far a U.S. intervention should go.

“I want to begin by saying to you, I am unalterably opposed to having a single American boot on the ground in Syria,” McCain said. 

“The American people wouldn’t stand for it. Second of all, it would not be anything but counterproductive to do that. American blood and treasure is too precious to do that.”

Secretary of State John Kerry has said “there will not be boots on the ground with respect to the civil war” in Syria, and Obama has said the U.S. military plan for action “does not involve boots on the ground.”