John Kasich War Quotations

I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor - that if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.

I would only go to Syria to destroy ISIS. I would not use U.S. troops to depose Assad. But I would support the rebels there. It's okay to support those people who share your view. But for the United States to be embroiled in a civil war in Syria against [Bashr] Assad I think is a big mistake.

The foreign policy, you have to know how to pick and choose. There's no way, if Saddam [Hussein] had not had weapons of mass destruction, I would have gone, because I don't believe that the U.S. should be involved directly in civil wars.

You know, it's trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. Not only are there a lot of outsiders intervening but this also involves a vicious internal war. There are many who believe the Alawites will fight to the death because they believe that, should they lose power, the majority would take, would show no compassion for them. They ruled that country for a long time, ruthlessly. It is a vicious civil war that makes one want to cry every day.

We've just let too many things happen. And now, try to turn around and fix it. Getting involved in a [Syria] civil war directly was never something I thought made sense.

I do not support a civil war. I don't want to be policeman of the world. But we can't back off of this.

We have to go massively, like we did in the first Gulf War where we destroyed Saddam's ability to take Kuwait. We need to have a coalition that will stand for nothing less than the total destruction of ISIS and we have to be the leader.

There is a difference between Iraq, where you have Sunni, Shia, and Kurds put together after the First World War by the Western powers. It doesn't work. It needs to break up into three parts.

I said that we needed to have people on the ground, troops on the ground in a coalition similar to what we had in the first Gulf War.

A great power has to have the discipline not only to go when necessary but to know when not to go. Getting involved in ethnic, religious civil wars is a recipe for disaster.