Duking out the fifth and final Republican debate this year on the stage in Las Vegas were the nine highest-polling GOP candidates, including billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
While much of the foreign policy debate centered on the refugee crisis and the fight against Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL), candidates also spoke out about the political situation in Syria and whether the US should stand for removing dictators, including Syrian President Bashar Assad.
He criticized NATO’s intervention in Libya, saying that even though Americans were told that moderate rebels would take over, “the result is, Libya is now a terrorist war zone run by jihadists.” He also questioned support for the Egyptian revolution, saying a “terrorist organization” in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood came to power afterward, and that the US needs to “learn from history”when it comes to Syria.
“These same leaders — Obama, Clinton, and far too many Republicans — want to topple Assad. Assad is a bad man. Gaddafi was a bad man. Mubarak had a terrible human rights record. But they were assisting us — at least Gaddafi and Mubarak — in fighting radical Islamic terrorists,” he said.
“If we topple Assad, the result will be ISIS will take over Syria, and it will worsen US national security interests.”
“The government in Saudi Arabia is not a democracy, but we will have to work with them. The government in Jordan is not perfect, but we will have to work with them,” he said. But when it comes to “anti-American dictators like Assad, who help Hezbollah … if they go, I will not shed a tear.”
In response, Cruz argued that it was wrong to think that he US could find credible local partners for regime change in the Middle East.
“We keep hearing from President Obama and Hillary Clinton and Washington Republicans that they’re searching for these mythical moderate rebels. It’s like a purple unicorn. They never exist. These moderate rebels end up being jihadists,” he said.
“[Other GOP candidates and neoconservatives] still want regime change. They want it in Syria. They wanted it in Iraq. They want it in Libya. It has not worked,” he said. “Out of regime change you get chaos. From the chaos you have seen repeatedly the rise of radical Islam. So we get this profession of, oh, my goodness, they want to do something about terrorism and yet they’re the problem because they allow terrorism to arise out of that chaos.”
“ISIS is winning the propaganda war,” he said. “We have to show what life is really like in ISIS territory.”
“ISIS is created and formed because of the abuse that Assad and his Iranian sponsors have rained down on Sunnis in Syria,” he said. “We need to focus our attention on Iran, because if you miss Iran, you miss ISIS.”
GOP frontrunner Trump, who has previously argued that the US should not get involved, has now expressed his support for stopping jihadists by closing down “parts of [the] internet.” He then clarified that he really meant “parts of Syria, parts of Iraq, where ISIS is.”
He has also suggested going after the families of terrorists as a way to combat the group.
“Two months ago, Donald Trump said ISIS is not our fight,” Bush said, setting off a round of bickering between the two.