Carson: ‘The Syrians Want to Be in Syria’

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” after meeting with Syrian refugees in Jordan, Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said it was his belief Syrian refugees there wanted to be back in Syria.

Discussing what he learned, Dr. Carson said, “Well, you know, it was always wonderful to see things firsthand and to have an opportunity to actually go to the refugee camps and to some of the medical facilities. And I actually talked to the people, not only to the Jordanians who are incredibly generous in terms of their support of refugees, and that’s been the case for decades now, but also to the Syrian refugees themselves to find out what they think about the whole situation, whether their wants and desires. The Syrians want to be in Syria. They want to be repatriated in their own country. And they are looking for a mechanism to get there. But in the meantime, the facilities that have been offered to them here in Jordan are very satisfactory. When I asked them what Americans could do they said if Americans could support those facilities to a greater degree because they have much more capacity here in Jordan and I suspect in some of the other countries as well.”

“I think the military solution, obviously, is to try to exterminate ISIS and the other radical jihadists who will not allow peace to occur under any circumstances until they achieve their goals,” ht continued. “But in terms of a place like Syria, you have to recognize that the likelihood of an Assad regime maintaining peaceful control is extremely small, and the likelihood of Al Nusra or any of the anti-Assad factions maintaining control is also very small. So you need to be working on some type of mechanism to keep it from being a perpetual turmoil.”

He added, “I think the most compassionate thing when you’re fighting a war is to do it quickly. The longer you drag it out, the more people are hurt. And I think we need to work in close conjunction with our Department of Defense, with our experts. Ask them what do you need in order to accomplish this? And let’s make a decision. Are we going to give that to them? Or are we going to keep giving them things piecemeal.”

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