John Kasich Quotes

I said that we needed to have people on the ground, troops on the ground in a coalition similar to what we had in the first Gulf War.

Using overwhelming air power to utterly and completely destroy ISIS. To put things in perspective, in the first Persian Gulf War, we launched roughly 1,100 air attacks a day. We carpet bombed them for 36 days, saturation bombing, after which our troops went in and in a day and a half mopped up what was left of the Iraqi army.

When Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990, I felt America's post-Cold War commitment to national principles and international leadership was on the line. I was dismayed by the wide opposition among my fellow Democrats. To me, their position was wrong.

Most people forget that even in Iraq, by the time the air and no-fly zone was established, the air defence system had been removed through the first Gulf war. All of them had been neutralised.

I saw Kuwait many times before the war. I remember it as a beautiful place, full of very nice people, and it's a tragedy to see that somebody could set out to deliberately destroy a country the way the Iraqis have.

Many in the U.S. military believe ISIS needs to be immediately, and repeatedly, smashed by American drones and warplanes.

I have two sons. Both served. One as a marine officer in Iraq, one as an army officer in Afghanistan. I do not see - want to see one parent or loved one worrying about getting a call in the middle of the night. I would not place one American life at risk unless it was absolutely necessary. But to destroy ISIS, it is necessary.

The United States encouraged Iraqis to rise up after Saddam Hussein's army was driven out of Kuwait. Washington assumed Saddam was weak after losing the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqis rose up, but Saddam's troops killed thousands - Iraqis say tens of thousands - in a counter-offensive.

Our priority is to go after ISIL. And so what we have said is that we are not engaging in a military action against the Syrian regime. We are going after ISIL facilities and personnel who are using Syria as a safe haven, in service of our strategy in Iraq.

We can rebuild an alliance to fight ISIS, but we have to lead, and we have to give our allies what they are asking us to do. We do not have to march off to war, but we have to help our allies fight a war which we need them to win.

I can support going in after Saddam Hussein, but I want to make sure I don't go alone.

It took the Gulf War to demonstrate that America did want more than one friend in the Mideast, and also was willing to take and make major risks to prevent a small Muslim country, Kuwait, from being overrun and in effect stolen by Iraq.

Washington still refuses to provide evidence to support the claims in 1990 that a huge Iraqi military build-up on the Saudi border justified war.

Every decision to use military force is an excruciatingly difficult one.

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.

President George H. W. Bush soon launched Operation Desert Shield, sending an enormous contingent of troops to Saudi Arabia. But once there, what exactly were they to do? Contain Iraq? Attack and liberate Kuwait? Drive on to Baghdad and depose Saddam? There was no clear consensus among foreign policy advisers or analysts.

I think Donald Trump believes in defeating ISIS, resolving issues in the Middle East.

I have already said that I find the coalition air strikes to be insufficient. A ground intervention will be necessary to overcome Daesh.

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.

We also have to intensify our air strikes against ISIS and eventually support our Arab and Kurdish partners to be able to actually take out ISIS in Raqqa, end their claim of being a Caliphate.

The Iraqis had paid a terrible price for Saddam's folly (in the Gulf War). But looking at the devastation they left behind (in Kuwait), my sympathy was limited.

What I could not support was a dumb war, a rash war, a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

I would have troops where they’re wanted, in our bases in Kuwait. I would have a contingency in case of an international terrorist attack. Our involvement in Iraq has led us to fail to focus on the true threat, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan... It was a mistake.

I actually looked up in my journal trying to figure out some dates and, in January 1991, America is about to go back into its first sort of actual war since Vietnam, with the Gulf War. It just seemed unbelievable at the time that this country would do that - which is funny to think about now.

It is important not to allow ever wider coalition-building to become an end in itself. As we saw in the Gulf War of 1990, international pressures, particularly those exerted from within an alliance, can result in the failure to follow actions through and so leave future problems unresolved.