Political Quotes

“If I may, just to wrap this up, 50 diplomats who served in the Mideast wrote an open letter to the world to say that we have let Assad get away with murder. Assad will be in power when Obama is gone. Russia and Iran have gone to Assad's aid. The biggest winners of Obama's strategy in Syria have been Russia and Assad. The biggest losers have been our allies--Arab allies, in particular and the people in Syria. About our willingness to help, I was in a multiperson primary back in 2014. The President basically reached out to Senator McCain and myself after Assad had crossed the redline the President drew regarding chemical weapons. It was Labor Day. I will never forget it as long as I live. I flew up with Senator McCain, and we met with President Obama in the Oval Office and Susan Rice. They informed us of what Assad did, and were seeking our support to basically hit him militarily as punishment for crossing the redline. The goal was to degrade Assad's capability on the battlefield, upgrade the ability of the opposition to fight him and change momentum on the battlefield. Senator McCain and I went out in front of the Oval Office in the driveway and said: We stand with the President in his efforts to deal with Assad for crossing the redline, to upgrade the opposition, degrade Assad, and change the momentum on the battlefield. This was right around Labor Day. It was supposed to happen in a couple of days--airstrikes from the sea and land. Nothing happened.…”