Patrick Murphy on War & PeaceDemocrat | |
Murphy: No. Focus on air strikes, coalitions with allies, targeting ISIS cyber recruiting.
Rubio: Some increase is fine. Also increase air strikes and coalitions to support local forces.
Q: On Iran: Support the US-Iran treaty that limits Iran's nuclear capability in return for lifting economic sanctions?
Murphy: Yes
Rubio: No
We absolutely had to go after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan after 9/11, and our troops have and continue to serve admirably. However, the mission has changed--and our ability to pay for it has changed.
Our troops began a phased withdrawal and are scheduled to be fully out of Afghanistan by 2014. Between now and 2014, we need to do everything we can to stabilize and rebuild the country, giving them the best chance to build on the opportunity our soldiers have fought for.
We should relentlessly pursue Al Qaeda. If we have intelligence as to where Al Qaeda or terrorists with any capability to attack us are--we should take swift and decisive military action, but we don't need to have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan to achieve this goal.
There is absolutely no question that if Iran attacks the United States or Israel, or if it is certain that such an attack is imminent, that we must take immediate and devastating military action. Additionally, we must utilize every option to prevent them from gaining nuclear weapons. In the meantime, we must continue to put intense economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime to move them to more normalized relations with the world and their neighbors.
There will certainly be massive changes in Iran in the coming years--and while we should be ready to protect our interests, we should recognize that it's the regime, not the people, who are driving most of the radical policies.