The Atlantic: on War & Peace

Bill Weld: Supports libertarian "restraint" on military action

Hillary Clinton: Not helping Free Syrian Army left vacuum for ISIS to fill

A: I'm the one who convinced the administration to send an ambassador to Syria. I can't sit here today and say that if we had done what I recommended, that we'd be in a demonstrably different place.

Q: That's the president's argument, that we wouldn't be in a different place.

A: Well, if we were to carefully vet, train, and equip early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian Army, we would, #1, have some better insight on the ground. And #2, we would have been helped in standing up a credible political opposition.

Q: Would we be where we are with ISIS if the US had done more three years ago?

A: The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad---there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle---the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.

Jason Kander: Iraq War was a huge strategic error, and I said so then

KANDER: No.

Q: Why?

KANDER: At this point, everybody agrees that that was a huge strategic error. If you watch, for instance, what's going on in the Republican debate for the presidency, you see, overwhelmingly, everyone on both sides of the aisle seems to agree that was a mistake. And that's something I understood that at the time, and Senator Blunt did not.

Q: Should President Obama should have kept troops in Iraq instead of a complete withdrawal?

KANDER: I think that the focus at this point has got to be what we do now. I feel the president could have done a better job explaining what we need to do now to combat ISIS rather than talk about what we've been doing.

Q: You don't think the president did a good job addressing the nation about ISIS?

KANDER: I thought the president could have done a better job.

Jason Kander: Engage ISIS, including ground troops as a last resort

KANDER: We have to be willing to engage ISIS militarily, economically, and even on the Internet without delay. For instance, I think we waited too long to engage al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan. And we should not make a similar mistake with ISIS elements throughout the world.

Q: You think we should send additional troops in Syria or Iraq?

KANDER: Ground troops have to be a last resort. I think they should always be a last resort. But as I think we have that conversation going forward, we need to make sure it's not just a conversation of whether we should send people in, but also how those people get out. I think in the past we have not always had that conversation. But it's clear that as we go forward, if military leaders say that that is the only way we are going to be able to destroy ISIS, then that's what we're going to have to.

Mike Pompeo: Negotiate from strength to denuclearize North Korea

"The previous administration was negotiating from a position of weakness. This administration will be negotiating from a position of enormous strength," Pompeo said. He noted that the Trump administration's international sanctions campaign had forced North Korea to engage diplomatically with the US and suspend its nuclear and missile tests while doing so. The administration's plan for the talks, he explained, is to maintain and increase economic pressure on North Korea while aiming for the "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea."

Mike Pompeo: Caution with history of deceit by North Korea

He points to "the history of deceit" of the Kim regime, which overt the last 25 years has repeatedly reneged on commitments to curb its nuclear activities. At the CIA, where he established a center devoted to addressing North Korea, Pompeo has also been intimately acquainted with just how formidable the North Korean nuclear program has become. While he's characterized the Trump administration's ultimate goal as ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons, he's suggested that the administration's near-term objectives are more modest: keeping North Korea from progressing further than where it is, which is on the verge of perfecting the technology to place a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States.

Rex Tillerson: Create right conditions for negotiations with North Korea

At the State Department and CIA, respectively, Tillerson and Pompeo have both prioritized the North Korean nuclear threat and focused on pressuring North Korea economically and diplomatically. But whereas Tillerson has expressed eagerness to create the right conditions for negotiations with North Korea, Pompeo has voiced profound skepticism about what such talks can accomplish.

Whereas Tillerson has been associated with a faction in the administration resistant to military options to deal with the North's nuclear program, Pompeo has taken a more aggressive position. Tillerson declared that the US wasn't seeking regime change in North Korea; Pompeo suggested ways to "separate" Kim Jong Un from his nuclear weapons.