Former Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) is speaking out on this week’s independence referendum in Scotland. Lugar says he hopes the vote that would separate Scotland from the United Kingdom fails.
Analysts say the vote looks tight and could go either way. Lugar, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says if Scotland breaks away, it‘ll change the face of the United Kingdom as we know it and directly impact the U.S.
"If a referendum of this sort comes along and a good portion of Great Britain is sawed off -- literally -- this diminishes whatever power Great Britain has," Lugar says. "It certainly diminishes its force as a strong ally of the United States."
Lugar says current U.S. involvement on the world stage - for example, in the Middle East - is bolstered by its alliance with Great Britain and NATO.
He says a distracted Great Britain would diminish that country’s ability to help the U.S., especially in the fight to root the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, out of Iraq and Syria.
