Retired Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, a conservative activist whose support President-elect Donald Trump boasted of during his campaign, told conservative radio host John Fredericks today that the only way to gain credibility and win “hearts and minds” in the Middle East is to “kill them into submission.”
Calling the Iraq War “one of the greatest strategic mistakes we ever made,” Lyons said, “What we did, we destroyed the Sunni-Shiite balance. We should not be involved in the sectarian Sunni-Shiite war that has gone on for over a thousand years. My view is, let them kill each other off, number one. While I am at that, I might add, we should not embrace anything that approaches the failed COIN [counter-insurgency] strategy which has cost the lives and devastating injuries to many of our military personnel…My view is, when you want to win their hearts and minds, there is one way to do it. In the Middle East, there is only one thing that counts. It’s street respect. And the way you get street respect; you kill them into submission. And once you do that, I guarantee you, the hearts and minds will follow.”