New Jersey Governor and Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said, “we have to work with the rebels in Syria to be able to find out who’s best to be able to bring stability to that country” on Saturday’s “Fox & Friends” on the Fox News Channel.
Christie began by criticizing CNBC’s handling of the GOP presidential debate, but argued candidates should be able to handle themselves against CNBC’s moderators.
The discussion then turned to foreign policy, Christie said he was unclear on what the goal of President Obama’s deployment of US special forces to Syria, because “once again, this is a president who doesn’t communicate to the nation. He acts unilaterally, doesn’t get buy-in from the American people. … So, I don’t know what the president’s strategy is. Quite frankly, I don’t think he has one.”
Christie was later asked who he thinks should be in charge of Syria. He answered, “first off, what I would do is to set up a no-fly zone in Syria, to try to protect those people who are trying to take over their government and oust Assad. You’ve got to try to protect them and give them the opportunity to fight, and we haven’t done that. And the fact is, that no-fly zone of course should apply to everyone, and should apply to Russia in particular. … So, what we need to do is establish a no-fly zone and then let’s work with our allies in the region to come to a resolution that defeats ISIS, and stabilizes Syria.”
After Christie was asked who should run the country a second time, he stated, “I think we have to work with the rebels in Syria to be able to find out who’s best to be able to bring stability to that country. And so, I think that’s got to be something that’s got to come with our help organically from within. If we try to impose it, Tucker, from the outside, I don’t know that that’ll work. And so, let’s first set up an opportunity for them to fight and defeat Assad, by setting up a no-fly zone, and then we move towards identifying the leaders in that country who can help to bring stability to Syria, but let’s not keep our eye off the ball, either. Our number one priority has to be to defeat ISIS.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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