The United States needs to demand that the wealthy nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates work to stabilize the situation in Syria, rather than allowing the United States to shoulder the burden, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Thursday.
"Saudi Arabia has the third-largest military budget in the world," the Vermont Independent senator told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "We restored the Kuwaiti royal family to their position in the first Gulf War. You got the UAE sitting there, which is an extraordinarily wealthy family."
"It is wrong
to the United States of America, our armed forces, our taxpayers to put that country back together again," Sanders told the program. "You need a regional force of people prepared to take on ISIS and destroy that barbaric organization."
And when it comes to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Sanders said, "You have a horrendous dictator at war with his own people."
However, he commended President Barack Obama for "doing a good job trying to sort through this and trying to make sure that we do not continue to have funerals back home for young American kids killed in combat."
Sanders noted that he voted against the Iraq War, and he believes that was right to do because the war "clearly has led to the destabilization of the situation right now."
He said his major priority would be to get rid of ISIS and phase out Assad, and that could be done if the U.S. can work "with Russia, work with Saudi Arabia, work with Iran, all of whom have a common interest in that area in opposition to ISIS."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.