John Kasich Quotes

Like a nuclear disaster, the fallout from the meltdown of Syria threatens to be with us for decades, and the longer it is permitted to continue, the more severe the damage will be.

I am confident that Assad's days are numbered. But what we can't do is to simply suggest that, as Governor Romney at times has suggested, that giving heavy weapons, for example, to the Syrian opposition is a simple proposition that would lead us to be safer over the long term.

I think the blood is spilling in Syria and it's mostly Muslims.

Secretary [John] Kerry has called Civil War [in Syria] an unbelievably small war that we're going to get involved with.

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.

We've got a very difficult situation created by this embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. And that's not getting better. It's getting worse. The carnage for the people of Syria is horrific, and it's quite frankly too little, too late to reverse a lot of that.

The Middle East is more angry than ever. I'm afraid that the sort of deceit on the route to war was linked to the lack of preparation for afterwards and the chaos and suffering that continuous - so it won't go away will it?

Let's be cautious about dreaming up extreme scenarios. The situation in Iraq is still salvageable.

We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos; there will be genocide; and they will follow us home.

Syria cannot continue this way—killing their people

Extremism in Syria cannot be contained within Syria.

Syria: It’s a messy civil war and we should not be involved in it.

As the crisis in Syria grows and the humanitarian tragedy becomes more clear, I appreciated Prime Minister Netanyahu's perspective on the changes and volatility in the region.

We have no vital national interest in Syria's civil war.

Beyond Iraq, I am also profoundly worried about the continuing meltdown of Syria, which is a geopolitical Chernobyl. Until it is capped, it is going to continue to spew radioactive instability and extremist ideology over the entire region.

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.

There are still plenty of fighting forces inside of Syria who want to see Assad go. We should have been helping them from the very beginning.

Assad has to go. I mean, the way that ISIS can recruit, and the rebels that are in the north, and all the chaos that's happening through a lot of Syria circles around a lot of people that do not like Assad.

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.

We don't see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there.

The Syrian rebels, weakened by infighting, have also been victims of the growing rift between the U.S. and its closest Arab allies.

Intervening militarily would exacerbate - not resolve - the matter and, in the process, will Americanize the Syrian civil war.

Da'esh and Assad are not separate problems.

There is a risk that overt American support for Guaido could shore up Maduro's base and trigger displays of military force, potentially plunging Venezuela into a civil war.

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.