A Quote by Jim Mattis
Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.
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We have to do one thing at a time. We can't be fighting ISIS and fighting [Bashar]Assad. Assad is fighting ISIS. He is fighting ISIS. Russia is fighting now ISIS. And Iran is fighting ISIS.
I don't like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.
Many countries that formerly saw Israel as an enemy now see Israel as a potential partner in addressing their primary security challenges. And so first and foremost, Iran. The rise of Iran, the empowerment of Iran has created a big change in the dynamics in the region. The second was the rise of ISIS.
We saw that, as Syrian troops went to Aleppo, ISIS took Palmyra. But ISIS' days are numbered. The Donald Trump administration has said that they're going to concentrate on ISIS and they're going to work with Russia. Now, we don't know whether they really will work with Russia or not, but it's clear that ISIS is going to be pounded.
From a geo-strategic point of view, I consider Iran a bigger problem than the Islamic State. ISIS is a group of adventurers with a very aggressive ideology. But they have to conquer more and more territory before they can became a geo-strategic, permanent reality. I think a conflict with ISIS - important as it is - is more manageable than a confrontation with Iran.
Once ISIS is defeated, there is a larger effort under way to make certain that we don't just sprout a new enemy. We know ISIS is going to go down. We have had success on the battlefield. We have freed millions of people from being under their control.
I think we have to knock out ISIS. Right now Syria is fighting ISIS. We have people who want to fight both at the same time. But Syria is no longer Syria; Syria is Russia and Iran, who she made strong, and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation and very rich nation very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. I believe we have to get ISIS.
[People] are tired of being out-negotiated on every front. Whether it is militarily, with ISIS where we can't stop ISIS, where we have 2,300 Humvees, the latest and the greatest, armour-plated, stolen because one bullet is shot in the air and the allies run and the enemy takes over our weapons.
To me, what I've always said is that the president [Barack Obama] has set up an awful situation through his deal with Iran, because what his deal with Iran has done is empower them and enrich them. And that's the way ISIS has been created and formed here. ISIS is created and formed because of the abuse that [Bashar] Assad and his Iranian sponsors have rained down on the Sunnis in Syria.
When it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy!
We worry a lot about ISIS traveling overseas from Syria to the United States, but I think one of the greatest fears are those already within the U.S. who are being radicalized and inspired by the ISIS propaganda that's out there on the Internet.
Don’t be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend of America.
We didn't create ISIS. ISIS created ISIS.
We need to focus our energies there, not these broad, blanket, kind of statements that will make it harder for us to deal with ISIS. We need to deal with ISIS in the caliphate. We need a strategy to destroy ISIS there. You can't do that without the cooperation of the Muslim world because they're as threatened as we are.
I think that all countries of the region should join their efforts in the fight against a common threat - terrorism in general and ISIS in particular. It concerns Iran as well, it concerns Saudi Arabia (although the two countries do not get along very well, ISIS threatens both of them), it concerns Jordan, it concerns Turkey (in spite of certain problems regarding the Kurdish issue), and, in my opinion, everybody is interested in resolving the situation. Our task is to join these efforts to fight against a common enemy.
Cartels south of the border actually have a lot in common with ISIS. In fact, ISIS could learn a thing or two from their gruesome tactics. The biggest differences between the two are motive and religion.
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