At a time when the insurgents are saying that time is working against them, my Democratic colleagues are introducing a measure to set a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq that will undercut the momentum that the insurgents themselves say we have built in Iraq.
In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq's main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria.
We're seeing the development of tactics in Iraq, such as suicide bombing. Insurgents have been driving cars with explosives into hotels and office buildings. The recruitment may be even more prolific outside Iraq.
We're making progress. Our military is assisting in Iraq. And we're hoping that within the year we'll be able to push ISIS out of Iraq and then, you know, really squeeze them in Syria.
Like Afghanistan before it, Iraq is only one theater in a regional war. We were attacked by a network of terrorist organizations supported by several countries, of whom the most important were Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
It's very hard to understand just what our strategy is in Syria, frankly, and on Iraq that this is Iraq's war, that the role of the United States is to help Iraq, to arm, train, support, provide air support, but this has to be Iraq's war.
One of the most missed components of the entire insurgency in Iraq was that Syria and Bashar al-Assad facilitated Al Qaeda's operations in Iraq. They actually headquartered the Iraq Ba'ath Party and all of their escaped generals in Damascus.
Old companies that had nothing to do with software in the past all have software development activities to unlock the invention that's occurring inside of these organizations. And so the developer is a very important part of that overall ecosystem.
Religious distinctions are deeply important for many of the problems in today's Middle East, particularly between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Syria and Iraq.
We have a relationship with Syria, an old relationship. We also have good relations with the people of Syria, with all segments of the population. This is the situation as well in Iraq and other countries.
We cleared many of their towns and cities and rural areas of al-Qaida Iraq and other insurgents.
The insurgents are Baathists and Sunnis in Iraq who have as their goal a separate and distinct one of toppling the government that is there and creating their own.
I mean, of course that's a theoretical question, and we don't know what it would be for, and we don't know how many numbers there are. I am against American combat troops being in Syria and Iraq.
If you want peace and well-being to be in place in the Middle East and you want terrorism to be uprooted, then there's no path other than the presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, you saw that in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen that the power that was able to help the people of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen in the face of terrorist groups was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Syria is a terrorist state by any definition and is so classified by the State Department. I happen to think Iran is too. Iraq, Iran, Syria, they're all involved.
Turkey's a valued ally, important ally for NATO, not the least because of its strategic geographic location, bordering Syria and Iraq and close to Russia and the Black Sea.