David Petraeus Quotes

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.

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

The United States should propose partition in Syria. Assad can keep what he controls, and the rebels can form local governments and establish a new entity.

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.

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.

Iran has basically propped up Assad, who has waged an absolute war of horror against the Syrian people. And he has done anything he could to stay in power with the full support of the Iranians and including Iranian troops and Hezbollah from Lebanon, which are an Iranian proxy.

I've been calling for the support of the Syrian rebels for years.

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

Da'esh and Assad are not separate problems.

There is little doubt that an unstable Syria will destabilize the whole Middle East.

The situation in Syria is quite different from Libya.

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.

No one in Washington has yet made a credible case that a post-Assad Syria can hold together.

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.

As was true in Iraq and Libya, the United States has no credible government or leader able to bring order, security, and freedom to the people of Syria if Assad is overthrown.

It's difficult to see how Syria can have any long-term future with Assad there as president. Many people would never return to that country if that were the case.

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

It was wrenching to read about the brutality of Assad every morning, to see images of family homes reduced to rubble. I felt we had to do something in Syria.

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.

Syrian influence has not ended yet. It is going to be a very long path.

After all, we paid great prices because of the virtual partitioning of Iraq.

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