Leadership Quote by Sam Brownback

“Be more aggressive” is the kind of Washington phrase that sounds like strategy while conveniently dodging specifics. Sam Brownback’s line is doing two things at once: projecting resolve and outsourcing the messy details of what resolve would actually require. “We must do everything we can” is maximalist language meant to pre-approve escalation before anyone asks what tools are on the table. Sanctions? Border interdictions? Covert action? Military strikes? The vagueness isn’t accidental; it’s political cover that lets hawks sound tough without committing to a policy that can be measured, costed, or blamed.

The context is the Iraq War era, when U.S. frustration over insurgent violence metastasized into a search for external culprits. Syria became a useful target in that narrative: close enough to be plausibly involved (porous borders, alleged facilitation of fighters), distant enough from Baghdad’s failures to redirect accountability. Brownback’s formulation frames Syria as an actor “doing” something to Iraq, neatly minimizing Iraq’s internal dynamics and U.S. decisions as primary drivers of instability. It also turns “confronting” into a moral imperative rather than a diplomatic choice, an important move if you’re trying to shift public tolerance toward coercion.

There’s subtext here about American credibility: after a costly invasion, the temptation is to treat regional complexity as a discipline problem. If only the neighbors were pressured harder, the story goes, Iraq could stabilize. The line works because it trades in urgency and righteousness, not evidence, and because “aggressive” plays well in domestic politics even when it’s strategically incoherent.