You’d better believe that Putin sees that in Syria, Obama draws a red line and ignores the red line.
I can’t discuss the possibility of the U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war without also talking about Benghazi.
To destroy the Islamic State, you have to fix Syria. You have to look at the reasons that created the Islamic State. This is a huge task.
Obama never listened to anyone, always thought he was smarter than every expert in the room, and treated every meeting as an opportunity to lecture everyone else. This led to real-world disasters, like Syria and the rise of Isis.
I was very upset in August of 2012 when President Obama declared a red line against Syria and said if these chemical attacks continue, that’s it, we’re done, we’re getting involved and we did nothing. When you’re the commander in chief, the buck stops with you.
You can’t make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can’t make peace without Syria.
Russia holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. This is a privilege, and it is a responsibility. Yet in Syria and in Aleppo, Russia is abusing this historic privilege.
Vladimir Putin is decisive. He’s committed to victory, and he now has aircraft and surface-to-air missiles and main battle tanks in Syria.
I can only say it is not for us to decide who should lead Syria. It is for the Syrians to decide.
Trump has long been a fan of Vladimir Putin but seems to be unaware that Russia’s goal in Syria is simply the maintenance of its longtime ally President Bashar al-Assad in power. Indeed, Moscow has hitherto shown little appetite to focus on ISIS.
We must apply the same standards to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt that we apply to Iran, Russia and Syria.
Turkey will not let Turkish territory or airspace be used in any activity that could harm the security or safety of Syria.
Syria and Iran have always had a pretty tight relationship, and it looks to me like they just cooked up a press release to put out to sort of restate the obvious. They’re both problem countries; we know that. And this doesn’t change anything.
ISIS already has strongholds in Syria, while the Free Syrian Army desperately needs more U.S. assistance.
Before I die, I will preach to the Muslims in the Arab world. I will preach in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. I will preach in Tehran. I will do it under the umbrella of God. And see its impact.
Syria is the proud heir of an ancient civilization that has a unique spectrum of minorities that encompasses Muslims and Christians of various denominations. There are at least ten such ethnic and religious groups.
Israel bombed the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007. What the Syrians did in response, nothing. Israel has killed a number of terrorist leaders in Syria. Response? Nothing.
In the case of non-signatory states like Syria and Iraq, the U.N. Security Council is mandated with enforcement of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdictions in matters of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Syria is hosting the most dangerous terrorist organizations.
I think Syria is now the training ground for the world… These rebel forces are more of a threat than anything.
Populated by the usual detritus of rabble.ca contributors, Canadian Peace Alliance retreads and Press TV dingbats, the Syria Solidarity Movement is unambiguously and unashamedly pro-Assad.
I’ve been involved in air strikes against Syria and operations against Syria numerous times in my career.
Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria.
Israel is becoming a fortress. Fences along the borders with Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.
The fate of Syria hangs in the balance, but it is entirely possible that the fall of the Assad regime will result in anarchy and cause Syria to turn into a second Afghanistan, a base for anti-Israel terrorism.
The transition from tyranny to democracy is very hard. The Syrian people have to handle this in a way that works in Syria. And the brutality of the Assad regime is unacceptable.
I believe that all refugees coming from Syria – a war-torn country that ISIS calls home – regardless of religion require additional scrutiny before entering the United States.
Syria is a terrorist state by any definition and is so classified by the State Department. I happen to think Iran is too. Iraq, Iran, Syria, they’re all involved.
We need to significantly increase the number of bombing runs we’re conducting in Iraq and Syria.
Jordan is the only Arab state that has provided citizenship to Palestinian refugees and integrated them. But something has to be done about the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.
For many foreign fighters, the jihad in Iraq and Syria is a commuter war.
In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq’s main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria.
When the air forces of the U.S., Russia, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others are already engaged with Isis in Syria, it’s a shortage of targets rather than of aircraft that is the coalition’s principal military constraint.
If you’re going to be involved in Syria, then you need to make sure that there really is peace in Syria. And that means making sure that President Assad does not use chemical weapons on his own people.
The creeping optimism that there might be a route to peace in Syria remains constrained by the elephant in the room – Bashar al-Assad.
In delivering the agreed objective of a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process, the removal of Isis from its territory in Syria by Syrian forces, the Syrian army and the Syrian Free Army fighting alongside each other is an opportunity to bind wounds.
Why is Assad more responsible for all the deaths in Syria than those fighting to overthrow and kill him?
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the number of violent extremist groups has grown across multiple continents. From Syria to Somalia to Pakistan, the United States is combating many of these groups – usually with bombs and missiles. Large numbers of innocent people are invariably caught in the middle.
Countries such as Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, which support terrorist organizations and use terror to achieve their objectives, are precisely the same countries working tirelessly to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This combination creates a new dimension to the threat on our way of life in the 21st century.
Back in the 1950s, America set out to intervene in Syria, liberate the people from a corrupt elite, and bring about a new democracy. They did this with the best of intentions, but it led to disaster. And out of that disaster, the Assad regime rose to power.
The presence of jihadis in Syria should be no surprise.
President-elect Donald Trump says he’s looking for a simple plan for defeating ISIS within his first 30 days of taking office. But even as ISIS has suffered setbacks in Iraq and Syria, its violent ideology continues to spread.
From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated.
I explained that we would like to adjust our position on the Syrian question to theirs, as, in our view, they are the decisive factor in our relations with our neighbors, and Syria is unimportant.
When you project weakness throughout the world, and you have a failed foreign policy, this is what you get. And now we have chaos in the Middle East, have ISIS taking over Iraq, Syria, Northern Africa, Egypt.
It is in the interest of France that the United States and Russia speak to each other and act in good faith against the scourge of terrorism in Syria, and contribute with our country to stabilizing a region where uncontrolled migrant flows begin today.
The American people deserve answers about Benghazi before we move forward with military involvement in Syria’s civil war.
Our priority is to go after ISIL. And so what we have said is that we are not engaging in a military action against the Syrian regime. We are going after ISIL facilities and personnel who are using Syria as a safe haven, in service of our strategy in Iraq.
We live in a country where posting ‘Let’s riot or something bruv!’ on Facebook will get you a couple of years in prison, while writing a column saying we should bomb Syria is practically an entrance exam for public intellectuals.
The central problem in Syria is that Sunni Arabs will not be willing partners against the Islamic State unless we commit to protect them and the broader Syrian population against all enemies, not just ISIS.
According to the FBI and the director of national intelligence, Syria’s becoming a perfect platform to strike our nation. I’ve got a very simple strategy as your president against ISIL. Whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to defeat them.
While conducting a conventional war in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has staged terrorist attacks on a global scale against the people from the countries who are fighting ISIS.
Maybe it’s the spy novelist in me looking for a future plot, but I hope the U.S. and its allies are thinking how to operate ‘unconventionally’ in Iraq and Syria in ways that undermine the Islamic State.
