Jack Keane Quotes

It's alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States.

Here's the problem - under both Obama and Trump, American military forces and assistance have provided just enough support to anti-Assad forces to keep the resistance going, but never enough help to actually dislodge Assad from power.

Obama has refused to equip, or to arm, any rebel groups fighting Assad or his forces.

I just don't understand how Kerry or Obama or anybody else thought Assad was going to change.

The Syrian Intervention was aimed not only at strengthening Assad's position but at forcing the United States to deal with Moscow on a more even footing.

Iran has basically propped up Assad, who has waged an absolute war of horror against the Syrian people. And he has done anything he could to stay in power with the full support of the Iranians and including Iranian troops and Hezbollah from Lebanon, which are an Iranian proxy.

My guess is that before Obama departs, he will adopt some of the more aggressive military options he has been resisting, such as 'safe zones' inside Syria and more aggressive deployment of U.S. special forces.

The Syrian rebels, weakened by infighting, have also been victims of the growing rift between the U.S. and its closest Arab allies.

What happened in Syria was, President [Barack] Obama had made a statement announcing what he called his "red line": You can't use chemical weapons, you can do anything else but [use] chemical weapons.

I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue, I should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo.

It is clear that the American people are weary of war. However, Assad gassing his own people is an issue of our national security, regional stability and global security.

War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.

The situation in Syria is quite different from Libya.

Mistakes, after all, are endemic to foreign and military policy given the unpredictability of events and the difficulty of securing reliable information in a place like Iraq.

I believe the military should be wary of diplomacy until war is declared; then the State Department should keep its nose out and let the military do whatever is necessary to win.

You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime.

You'd better believe that Putin sees that in Syria, Obama draws a red line and ignores the red line.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used, not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists.

Our safety requires a long-term military presence in the Middle East because that's where the plans to attack us are emanating.

By invading Iraq, the President has undermined the War on Terrorism.

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

Are there topics of sufficient import to the nation's well-being to replace the Soviets as the focus of U.S. intelligence?

Should President Clinton have killed Osama bin Laden when he had the opportunity in 1990s? Should President Bush have sent the U.S. military into Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein in 2003? Should President Obama have withdrawn all troops from Iraq in 2011? Such questions provide no real insight into future considerations.

The American people deserve answers about Benghazi before we move forward with military involvement in Syria's civil war.

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.