Wednesday on Newsmax TV’s “The Hard Line” the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. John McCain  (R-AZ) said “the weakness and feckless foreign policy of the president of the United States” has allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin to “gain significant control of the entire Middle East.”

McCain said Russian airstrikes on Syrian civilians who oppose President Bashar al-Assad’s is “a classic example of the Russians treating the United States with complete contempt.”

He continued, “This is an incredible display of American weakness, and obviously will ratchet it up the conflict in Syria rather than have it in any way diminished. This is really a remarkable point in American history.”

“They now have a major place in the Middle East that they haven’t had since Anwar Sadat threw the Russians out of Egypt in 1973. They are protecting their base on the Mediterranean — and obviously have the United States reacting rather than acting It is a series of actions by the Russians that again shows they hold United States with complete contempt. They believe we aren’t going to do anything and that we’re weak.”

McCain said Russia will “kill off the Free Syrian Army, which lead to the spread of ISIS.

“[I]SIS spreads more and more throughout the region because we have no strategy against ISIS — and Russia assumes a major role in the Middle East, which is an aspiration that Vladimir Putin has had for a long period of time. What should the United States be doing? First thing we should be doing is we should be launching our aircraft and saying, ‘We’re going to fly anyplace anytime and anyhow we want to — and don’t get in the way.'”

“It’s because of the weakness and feckless foreign policy of the president of the United States,” he continued. “This didn’t happen by accident nor immediately. It’s a result of a feckless foreign policy. You can go back to his failure to accept the advice of his national security advisors to arm the Free Syrian Army. You can go back to the red line in Syria, where he said that he was going to act and didn’t. You can go back to a pattern of behavior that rejects American leadership and displays American weakness. Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad are taking advantage of it. I’m sure you saw where they  announced that without telling the United States of America. The country that sacrificed hundreds of American lives, killed and wounded in trying to preserve Iraqi freedom. It is beyond anything that I have ever seen in my involvement in national security issues.”

McCain said Putin is “rewriting the maps” the Middle East and also “he is obtaining and solidifying a position of streagth where he can have a coalition with the Iranians and Syrians where he can gain significant control of the entire Middle East.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN