America is so outplayed by Putin and Assad, and by the way - and by Iran. Nobody can believe how stupid our leadership is.
You cannot bring peace in Syria as long as [Bashar] Assad is, in fact, there.
I think deconfliction with the Russians is probably the maximum that we can do. But deconfliction is enough to prevent us killing Russian soldiers when we are attacking the Assad regime.
The United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime.
I see a bit of a contradiction between the fight against the Islamic State and the desire to remove the Assad regime. And even if you work with Russia, I'm just not sold that working with Russia is an effective way to hasten the end of the Assad regime or to enact any type of punitive measures.
Assad is a bad guy, but you may very well end up with worse than Assad.
We have to do one thing at a time. We can't be fighting ISIS and fighting [Bashar]Assad. Assad is fighting ISIS. He is fighting ISIS. Russia is fighting now ISIS. And Iran is fighting ISIS.
Russia hasn't paid any attention to ISIS. They're interested in keeping Assad in power.
I don't like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.
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.
It's a brutal regime, in the Assad regime, that is willing to take any measure, no matter how immoral or war criminal acts, to persecute its goals.
Assad must go. He's lost the legitimacy to govern.
Bashar Assad clearly doesn't want to hear anything that impugns his government.
Putin is backing Assad - a person that's truly an evil person. And I think it's very bad for Russia. I think it's very bad for mankind. It's very bad for this world. And I really think that there's going to be a lot of pressure on Russia to make sure that peace happens, because, frankly, if Russia didn't go in and back this animal, you wouldn't have a problem right now. He was going to be overthrown.
We could have made peace with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad a long time ago. It didn't happen, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't want to give up the Golan (Heights).
I think we are making an assumption that that is the outcome of the negotiations. I think President Assad will be prepared to accept whatever the outcome of the intra-Syrian dialogue and the decision of the Syrian people is. But people are trying to decide and determine the outcome of the negotiation before even we agree to start the negotiations.
In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria's crisis once and for all.
The Russians appear to be - appear to be in conjunction with the Turks, as well as the Iranians, appear to be at a point where they are realizing for their interests as well, Assad being in power indefinitely is not in their interests.
I think [Bashar] Assad is a bad guy, a very bad guy, all right?
I invite President Assad to come to Jerusalem and to speak with me, with our parliament, with whomever he wants to speak in Israel and in the territories among the Palestinians.