Sen. Bernie Sanders says he'd authorize the use of military force in limited situations.
"I think [President Barack Obama] is trying very hard to thread a tough needle here, and that is to support the people who are against [Syria President Bashar] Assad, who are against ISIS," the Vermont lawmaker said Tuesday night at the first debate of Democratic presidential candidates.
Sanders called Syria "a quagmire," a term commonly used for the Vietnam War, and called the the Iraq War "the worst foreign policy blunder" in American history.
Sanders took on Hillary Clinton's support for a no-fly zone in Syria, which he said would escalate the fighting.
But asked if there is any reason he would use military force as president, Sanders said he'd act "if we are threatened or our allies are threatened. . . . I do not support the United States getting involved in unilateral action,"
Newsday reports.
Pressed by CNN moderator Anderson Cooper on specific cases in which he'd vote to authorize military force, Sanders referenced his vote in favor of mobilizing coalition troops to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in the late 1990s,
Politico reports.
The United States needs "coalitions" of troops to come together, said Sanders, who voted against authorizing the Gulf War in the early 1990s and against the Iraq War in 2002.
Sanders' anti-war stance also came up at the debate, but former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a Vietnam veteran, wouldn't criticize Sanders for his anti-war activism.
"Everybody makes their decisions," Webb said. "I respect that. It will be for the voters to decide if Sen. Sanders should be president."
Sanders responded by thanking Webb for his military service.
"I believe from the bottom of my heart that war should be the last resort," Sanders said.