Michael McCaul Quotes

Our mission to defeat ISIS has been slowed down by the need to defend from additional Iranian attacks.

This policy of containment is not a winning strategy. We need a policy to defeat and destroy ISIS once and for all.

On Putin's order, Russia intervenes in Syria not to fight terrorists but to abet the war crimes of the Assad regime. Russian bombers deliberately target aid workers and hospitals. They threaten Syrian freedom fighters trained by the U.S. They are allied with our enemies in the Middle East and trying to weaken our friendships there.

I don't think the British or American governments really want to fight the Islamic State. They just want to look as if they are doing so.

The reality is that we have missed a lot of opportunities in Iraq because of a failed policy.

We are caught in the Middle East in supporting the bad guys in order to get rid of the worse guys.

Terrorist infiltration should be resisted not at the national level, but at the international policies level.

President-elect Donald Trump has a host of national security challenges to deal with as he assumes office, from the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the grinding Syrian civil war to the flexing of Russian muscles under President Vladimir Putin to how to deal with ISIS as the terrorist army retreats in Iraq.

Any candidate who thinks that we only need to attack ISIS from the sky, without regard to where they flourish and why, shares President Obama's view that Iran is our partner in peace.

It's - getting Assad out is not the only priority. And so what we're trying to do is obviously defeat ISIS.

If the U.S. wants to destroy ISIS, it can destroy ISIS. We won't end terrorism around the world. But we can destroy ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Prominent generals are telling us that. Prominent national-security strategists are telling us that. So let's do it.

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.

We can make sacrifices to fight Islamic State, but the international coalition has to support us.

If your goal is to destroy ISIS, there needs to be a ground force. It could be American or foreign.

I think most of the Washington foreign policy establishment exists in a fantasy world when it comes to Syria. They fundamentally don't understand that Russia and Iran, from the beginning, had much more at stake in Syria than the United States did. Russia and Iran were going to do everything possible in order to keep Bashar al-Assad in power.

If Russia is there [in Syria] alone fighting them [ISIL], guess what? Russia becomes the target and Russia starts seeing - who knows - MANPADs will find their way in there, airplanes will fall out of the sky. They will become vilified. They'll become the new magnet, together with Assad, for the jihadis.

Hillary Clinton failed to mention that her agreement with a precipitous withdrawal and declaration of victory in 2011 helped left swaths of territory and weaponry from ISIS. She failed to mention that she described Bashar al-Assad as a positive reformer and opened an American embassy. She failed to mention a complete failure strategy in Libya, which now is enabling ISIS to move into Libya.

Russia hasn't paid any attention to ISIS. They're interested in keeping Assad in power.

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

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

I've been fighting amidst a lot of opposition from both Hillary Clinton as well as some Republicans who wanted to send arms to the allies of ISIS. ISIS rides around in a billion dollars worth of U.S. Humvees. It's a disgrace. We've got to stop - we shouldn't fund our enemies, for goodness sakes.

I don't think Israel can accept an Iranian terror base next to its major cities any more than the United States could accept an al Qaeda base next to New York City.

The situation in Syria is quite different from Libya.

As we continue to make great progress in the war on terror, now more than ever, it is important that members of the international community stand-by and bolster the efforts of the emerging diplomatic leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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