Rand Paul Quotes

I think Hillary Clinton is right. I think it isn't enough to leave [Bashir] Assad in place, because as long as he is there, there is going to be a recruiting magnet for ISIS.

I would only go to Syria to destroy ISIS. I would not use U.S. troops to depose Assad. But I would support the rebels there. It's okay to support those people who share your view. But for the United States to be embroiled in a civil war in Syria against [Bashr] Assad I think is a big mistake.

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.

If Assad continues to conduct strikes against the Free Syrian Army at will, it would be very difficult for them to have any success against ISIS.

The only people that have ever fought ISIS in Syria is not the regime; it is the Free Syrian Army.

Here's the problem - under both Obama and Trump, American military forces and assistance have provided just enough support to anti-Assad forces to keep the resistance going, but never enough help to actually dislodge Assad from power.

Da'esh and Assad are not separate problems.

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 think we can all agree [Bashar] Assad is a bad and evil actor, but I'm not so sure that we want the Islamic rebels to be in charge of Syria either.

There are still people - the majority on the stage, they want to topple [Bashar] Assad. And then there will be chaos, and I think ISIS will then be in charge of Syria.

I don't think anyone can predict what the short term will look like. In the long term, it will be a Syria without Bashar Assad. The longer it takes, the worse it will get.

Is Russia worried that defeating Daesh will open the door for defeating Bashar Assad? That would be a different story. But I don't think World War III is going to happen in Syria.

I think it's too late. I think that there's been too much. This all started with the red line, walking away from it. The inability to arm the legitimate [Bashar] Assad opposition.

The latest developments in Iraq are deeply troubling, but as the United States considers military and diplomatic responses to the actions of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) action, we should be clear that U.S. troops on the ground cannot go a million miles near a sectarian civil war-it's simply not an option.

Bashar Assad has been so brutal toward the Sunni within Syria that he created the space that led to the people of Syria themselves to stand up and try to overthrow him. That led to the chaos which allowed ISIS to come in and take advantage of that situation and grow more powerful.

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

To me, what I've always said is that the president [Barack Obama] has set up an awful situation through his deal with Iran, because what his deal with Iran has done is empower them and enrich them. And that's the way ISIS has been created and formed here. ISIS is created and formed because of the abuse that [Bashar] Assad and his Iranian sponsors have rained down on the Sunnis in Syria.

Russia should join the international coalition against Islamic State. It is absurd that we are intervening on the side of the Shiites in a war between Sunnis and Shiites even though almost all Russian Muslims are Sunnis. Putin is creating big problems for us in his attempt to help Bashar Assad.

I think we can take back Mosul, and then we can move on into Syria and take back Raqqa.

I would not use American ground forces in Syria. I think that would be a very serious mistake. I don't think American troops should be holding territory, which is what they would have to do as an occupying force. I don't think that is a smart strategy.

Obama has committed the U.S. to war on the Islamic State. To then allow within a month an allied enclave to be overrun - and perhaps annihilated - would be a major blow.

IS [Islamic State] has played a major role in helping Bashar al-Assad to reposition Syria on the international scene. Now, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution that would exclude him. The political game appears to be very cynical indeed.

Saying that the origin of the Islamic State (IS) is within the Muslim Brotherhood organisation only strengthens IS. This is what the Israeli government asserts when claiming that Hamas and IS are the exact same thing. By saying so, the historical resistance [against the Israeli occupation] is viewed as unlawful, called extremism and terrorism.

Did Hillary Clinton short-circuit when she advocated for the overthrow of Muamar Gaddafi and Libya is now an Islamic State stranglehold?

From a geo-strategic point of view, I consider Iran a bigger problem than the Islamic State. ISIS is a group of adventurers with a very aggressive ideology. But they have to conquer more and more territory before they can became a geo-strategic, permanent reality. I think a conflict with ISIS - important as it is - is more manageable than a confrontation with Iran.