McMaster: I'm 'not saying we are the ones to effect' Syrian regime change
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National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster on Sunday suggested unilateral U.S. military action may not be the Trump administration's plan to effect the Syrian regime change U.N. envoy Nikki Haley called "inevitable."
"What Ambassador Haley pointed out is it's very difficult to understand how a political solution [to the Syrian civil war] could result from a continuation of the [Bashar al-Assad] regime," McMaster told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.
"Now, we're not saying we are the ones to effect that change," he continued. "What we're saying is other countries should ask themselves some hard questions. Russia should ask themselves, 'What are we doing here? Why are we supporting this murderous regime that is committing mass murder of its own population and using the most heinous weapons available?'"
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McMaster also addressed the Pentagon's decision to redirect a carrier strike group as a show of force against North Korea, labeling it a "prudent" choice. Watch his comments in context below. Bonnie Kristian
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
