I think [Bashar] Assad is a bad guy, a very bad guy, all right?
If we have the kinds of confirmation that we need, we will once again work with the international community and the organization charged with monitoring compliance by the Syrian government, and we will reach out to patrons of Assad like Russia to put a stop to it.
Russia hasn't paid any attention to ISIS. They're interested in keeping Assad in power.
Every chance at destabilizing [Bashar] Assad. . . the bombing campaign causes a flood of refugees into Jordan, there's already half a million in Jordan. I think a bombing campaign - I think it's hard to argue that a U. S. bombing campaign is going to cause less refugees. And I think it causes more refugees and more of a humanitarian disaster. I think it causes, or allows, the risk of Israel being attacked with a gas attack to go up, if we attack Assad. So there's all kinds of bad things.
I don't like [Bashir] Assad at all. But Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS.
I think deconfliction with the Russians is probably the maximum that we can do. But deconfliction is enough to prevent us killing Russian soldiers when we are attacking the Assad regime.
We could have made peace with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad a long time ago. It didn't happen, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't want to give up the Golan (Heights).
I don't like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.
You cannot bring peace in Syria as long as [Bashar] Assad is, in fact, there.
I think we are making an assumption that that is the outcome of the negotiations. I think President Assad will be prepared to accept whatever the outcome of the intra-Syrian dialogue and the decision of the Syrian people is. But people are trying to decide and determine the outcome of the negotiation before even we agree to start the negotiations.
America is so outplayed by Putin and Assad, and by the way - and by Iran. Nobody can believe how stupid our leadership is.
The word 'democracy' and the name of Assad do not blend very well in much of Syria.
If we topple [Bashar] Assad, the result will be ISIS will take over Syria, and it will worsen U. S. national security interests.
Hillary Clinton called President Assad a "reformer". She called Assad a "different kind of leader". There's now 400,000 now dead. . . think about that.
Bashar Assad clearly doesn't want to hear anything that impugns his government.
Seeing Syria remove Assad is a very high priority for America.
If you withdraw from the game, you're out of the game. And we have withdrawn from the game. And we said Bashar Assad has to go. He's going to stay. So we're out of the game.
I see a bit of a contradiction between the fight against the Islamic State and the desire to remove the Assad regime. And even if you work with Russia, I'm just not sold that working with Russia is an effective way to hasten the end of the Assad regime or to enact any type of punitive measures.
The Russians appear to be - appear to be in conjunction with the Turks, as well as the Iranians, appear to be at a point where they are realizing for their interests as well, Assad being in power indefinitely is not in their interests.
It's a brutal regime, in the Assad regime, that is willing to take any measure, no matter how immoral or war criminal acts, to persecute its goals.
