bernie sanders pointing
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Bernie Sanders explains his opposition to Trump's Syria strike.

Former US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders appeared on on CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper, to clarify his foreign policy stance, after a busy week of intervention from the Trump White House.

Senator Sanders was clear, stating that the US must not get involved in "perpetual warfare in the Middle East," explaining to CNN that the key to removing Syrian President Assad was to forgo unilateral action, and instead work to convince Russia and Iran to withdraw their support for the Syrian leader.

Sanders said...
"Assad has got to go. ISIS has got to be defeated."

"But I do not want to see the United States get sucked into perpetual warfare in the Middle East, see our men and women get killed, trillions of dollars being spent."

Comment: Assad is working with Russia on defeating ISIS; removing Assad would likely only make ISIS stronger.


Sanders cited the US's never ending military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying the US could be "dragged into another war" to the detriment of domestic priorities.
"We have got to start paying attention to the needs back home."

"The war in Iraq was the worst blunder in the modern history of this country — precipitated mass instability. We cannot continue to make those mistakes."
CNN notes that when asked about support for the strike from within the Democratic Party and even former Obama administration officials, "Sanders said the Syria strike, as well as the US dropping one of its largest non-nuclear bombs in Afghanistan, were ineffective for problems that required a multilateral, diplomatic solution."
"It's not a question of one strike or one big bomb in Afghanistan."

"What you need is a strategy...This will require intensive negotiations to tell Russia that they cannot support a dictator who is destroying his entire country. One strike is not going to do very much in that process."
Sanders also touched on the North Korea front, sating he believed Trump understood the need to work with China to deal with the North Korean nuclear threat.
"The United States must not act impulsively, and we must not act unilaterally."