Jo Cox Quotes

I would not be surprised to see Syria break apart entirely.

Assad's regime helped ISIS grow by attacking other opposition forces and rarely targeting ISIS.

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.

The regime of Bashar al-Assad will inevitably go down. And its collapse will be loud not only in Syria but across the Arab world.

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.

What happened in Iraq and Syria was that the world remained silent as ISIS expanded.

The Sunnis no longer recognize the centralized government as a legitimate power. The Shia militia that is moving around is calling out war crimes that are anti-Sunni. So, the Sunnis are in a tough spot. Do they move to an ISIS, which is a radical Islamic terrorist organization? Or do they defend themselves? Or do they give up?

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 invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

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.

ISIS is in many ways a creation of the Syrian regime.

Extremism in Syria cannot be contained within Syria.

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.

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 is no question that what we are seeing - the horrible advance of ISIS - goes back, if you will, to the original sin of the invasion of Iraq.

If anything caused ISIS, it was the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Both sides in Syria are bad. One side is a brutal dictator, and the other includes Islamists and terrorists who are dangerous already and who would be brutal in power if given the chance.

I can't discuss the possibility of the U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war without also talking about Benghazi.

Da'esh and Assad are not separate problems.

The understanding of Syria's devastating civil war has been distorted by the immense danger and difficulty of covering it.

Last chances in the Middle East have been two a dirham since the 1950s. Each year the enmities are more profound, the despots more bloodthirsty and clownish, the violence more extreme, and the conditions of ordinary existence more ghastly.

President Bashar Assad's regime is in the unique position of being targeted both by Israel and supporters of al Qaeda.

ISIS controls a territory roughly the size of Maryland where 8 million people live. If it's attacked and toppled, who will fill the void?

There is no question that Iraq is one of the main problems. You'd have to be blind not to see what a magnet and generating force it's become for terrorist groups.