It’s been far too long since The Donald has showed up in one of our headlines! This Monday he appeared on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren to discuss his plans for foreign policy, specifically the role of our soldiers in Syria’s three-way civil war.
“If Putin goes in there and if he is able to knock out ISIS – which he has a big reason to do it because he doesn’t want them coming into other places – if he goes in and knocks out ISIS, to me that’s not the worst thing I have ever heard of,” said Trump.
If you watched CNN’s GOP debate on September 16th, you heard the candidates discuss how they would deal with Russia and the threat it poses to national security. While candidates like Carly Fiorina had a no-negotiation mindset, Donald Trump was quite confident that he would get along swimmingly with Vladimir Putin. In fact, Trump believes that he could get along with nearly every world leader.
Trump sees no reason to send U.S. troops to Syria, preferring to let Russia take on ISIS. Russia, who supports the Assad regime, has already started to build up its forces in Syria. The United States has sided with the Free Syrian Army.
“Assad must think we are the dumbest people on Earth,” said Trump, “because ISIS wants to fight Assad but they can’t get through because they are fighting us. If Russia wants to do the job on ISIS it would be something that I would not be extremely concerned about.”
The Republican frontrunner has been surprisingly quiet in regards to foreign policy during his campaign thus far and refused to elaborate when Van Susteren pressed him about his plans.
“I don’t want people to know all my thoughts,” said Trump, “because I do have a good chance, and if I’m there, I don’t want people to go back to your show and say, ‘Well, this is what he is going to do,’ he said. ‘If Gen. Douglas MacArthur and if Gen. Patton ever heard and some of the great generals ever heard all of this talk, this political talk, they would be spinning in their grave.'”
Although voters deserve to know as much as possible about the candidates’ plans, I understand Trump’s desire to keep military details a secret – especially considering how many of our enemies have access to U. S. media.