Rubio: Airstrikes Against Assad Are ‘Counterproductive’
WALLACE: "You are clearly one of the foreign policy hawks in the current GOP field. But some of your opponents note that back in 2013, when Bashar al Assad, the Syrian dictator, used chemical weapons — crossed the red line and used chemical weapons against his own people, that you voted against the use of force allowing President Obama to use force against Assad. Why is that, sir?"
RUBIO: "Well, first of all, I don’t support air strikes again Assad now. No one is calling for those now either. I thought: number one, it would be counterproductive, especially the way the president was describing what the strikes should be. We shouldn’t take symbolic military action or military action to send a message. You should only take military action if you have a very clear objective and you’re providing the resources necessary to win. The second is, I offered an alternative to airstrikes at the time. I very clearly outlined what we should be doing instead. It included increased sanctions on institutions that were propping up Assad, but it also included a more robust effort to identify non-radical Sunni elements within Syria that we could empower to topple Assad, but also to ensure that no vacuums were being created for groups like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra and others to take hold. I felt that airstrikes — and I still do — against Assad at the time would have been counterproductive. He would have survived. He would have remained in power and it would have strengthened his hand and allowed him to send the message to the world that he had taken on the United States and still held on. In fact, it may have rallied some in the Arab world to his side as a result of such a strike. So, those are the reasons why I thought that that should not have been the appropriate response at the time. If military response is the appropriate response, I will support it. In the case of ISIS, it is the appropriate response to have additional airstrikes. But no one is calling on airstrikes on Assad now, and I thought it was wrong then, too."
