Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina stated she “would be considering, after important consultations with our military leaders” “a no-fly zone around the rebel forces that we have armed” and said fellow GOP presidential candidate Kentucky Senator Rand Paul “sounds an awful lot like Obama” on Wednesday’s “Sean Hannity Show.”
Fiorina said, “Rand Paul sounds an awful lot like Obama to me. Oh, we have to engage diplomatically, and the only option to that is war. Of course, that’s false. And of course he mischaracterizes my position. I think we’ve talked a lot to Putin, and recall that one of the most important moments in the Cold War diplomacy was when Ronald Reagan walked out on Gorbachev, and changed the course of the Cold War fundamentally. There is a time to talk, and there is a time to stop talking. Now is the time to stop talking. I have also not advocated use of force, but I have advocated a show of strength. I would rebuild the 6th Fleet. I would rebuild the missile defense program. I would conduct regular military exercises in the Baltic states. I would put a few thousand more troops into Germany possibly. All of that is a show of strength.”
She added that in Syria, “I would make it very clear that our fighter jets will fly, whenever, and wherever they like.”
Fiorina also stated “to say, as Rand Paul has said, that, well, let’s just keep talking is the height of, frankly, naivete.” She further criticized President Obama’s foreign policy of “endless engagement and conversation without ever having a show of force” leading to the US’ “incredible weakness in the world today,” which she said “rewards bad behavior.”
Fiorina continued that she would be “engaging our Sunni allies, as well as the Kurds, in a discussion of what it will take to help them defeat ISIS, because every one of them are fighting ISIS on the ground, as we speak, whether it’s Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or the Kurds. I also would be engaged with the Turks, right now, on enforcing a no-fly zone in the northern part of that country. They have been asking us for that support for some time. We haven’t provided it. And I also would be considering, after important consultations with our military leaders…I would be thinking about creating a no-fly zone, both for humanitarian purposes, and also a no-fly zone around the rebel forces that we have armed, and that we are protecting.”
She concluded by stating that Russian fighter jets buzzing US borders and territorial waters are “provocations,” “and to just say, as John Kerry, Barack Obama, and apparently Rand Paul are saying, that we need to just keep talking to them, is foolishness.”
Fiorina also addressed the criticisms leveled at her by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) by stating, “if you wanted to have an enemy on the left, I guess Barbara Boxer’s as good as you can get. Because talk about someone whose policies have hurt people, for heaven’s sake, she has supported every progressive policy that destroys jobs, that creates conditions of poverty and desperation, that destroys small business. Of course she is going to work hard to try and defeat me, because guess what? The left is a little alarmed. I am soundly beating Hillary Clinton in two of the initial primary states, and I think they’re alarmed. I think they’re nervous. I’m not sure rolling out Barbara Boxer’s going to help them.” Fiorina also referenced Boxer correcting Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers for calling her “m’am.”
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