WASHINGTON -- The American air strike against Syrian anti-aircraft batteries in Lebanon triggered a new domestic debate Monday over the U.S. role in the Middle East.
With an impressive exception, Republican congressional leaders backed the air raids as a justifiable response to Syrian attempts to down U.S. reconnissance flights. Democrats criticized them as an escalation of warfare by U.S. peace-keeping forces.
Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., considered a Vietnam War hawk when he ran for president in 1964, said the United States has nothing to win in Lebanon.
'I think the president ought to bring everybody that's in an American uniform back and do it now because we're headed for war,' Goldwater said, repeating a theme he adopted when the multinational force went to Beirut.
'There's no sense in the United States becoming involved in a war in that part of the world. I'd rather look like a coward than lose about' 100,000 or 200,000 men.
Other key Republicans, however, supported the air strike.
Senate Republican leader Howard Baker, R-Tenn., said the reported death of one American crewman and capture of another, and the deaths of eight more U.S. Marines in shelling in Beirut, should not force Americans to 'turn our tail' and withdraw.
Sen. Charles Percy, R-Ill., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, 'We're not going to be driven out by terrorism.'
Former GOP Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also sided with President Reagan's decision to attack Syrian positions in Lebanon.
The United States must 'show determination we're not going to be driven out of Lebanon. (We) must retaliate,' he said.
Democrats opposed Sunday's air raid as an escalation of U.S. involvement, which already has taken at least 255 American lives.
Presidential candidates Walter Mondale, John Glenn, Alan Cranston, Reubin Askew, Gary Hart, George McGovern and Jesse Jackson all said the United States should reconsider having ground forces there.
Mondale complained: 'As long as our troops are stationed in Lebanon, we must respond to unprovoked attacks upon them. But retaliation is no substitute for a policy to ensure that our forces will not be deployed in Lebanon indefinitely.'
Askew said, 'The best way to defend our troops and our interests in Lebanon is not by making air strikes but by replacing American troops in that country as soon as possible with a mutual United Nations peacekeeping force.'
Glenn said America is 'stumbling toward' war.
Cranston warned the United States is risking a confrontation with the Soviet Union and the 'ultimate holocaust.'
Jackson said the administration decision to conduct the air strike was 'a kind of declaration of war.'
McGovern added that, 'Step by step the United States is approaching war with Syria.' Hart said U.S. land-based forces need to be removed and, 'Our role in that country cannot and must not be a military role.'
Rep. G.V. 'Sonny' Montgomery, D-Miss., chairman of the Veterans Affairs committee, said: 'We should either withdraw all Marines to the U.S. ships offshore or increase the number of Marines and have them take the high ground in order to defend themselves.'
Said Sen. Paul Tsongas, D-Mass., 'The only way to protect (the Marines) is with a political solution and you accomplish that with power sharing' between the Lebanese government and the various rebel forces.
