MR. SCHIEFFER: Governor, can I just ask you, would you go beyond what the administration would do? Like, for example, would you put in no-fly zones over Syria?
MR. ROMNEY: I don't— I don't want to have our military involved in— in Syria. I don't think there's a necessity to put our military in Syria at— at this stage.
I don't anticipate that in the future.
As I indicated, our objectives are to replace Assad and to have in place a new government which is friendly to us— a responsible government, if possible. And I want to make sure the get armed and they have the arms necessary to defend themselves but also to remove— to remove Assad. But I do not want to see a military involvement on the part of— of our— of our troops.
And this isn't— this isn't going to be necessary. We have— with our partners in the region, we have sufficient resources to support those groups. But look, this has been going on for a year. This is a time— this should have been a time for American leadership. We should have taken a leading role— not militarily, but a leading role organizationally, governmentally, to bring together the parties there to find responsible parties.
As you hear from intelligence sources even today, the insurgents are highly disparate. They haven't come together. They haven't formed a unity group, a council of some kind. That needs to happen. America can help that happen. And we need to make sure they have the arms they need to carry out the very important role, which is getting rid of Assad.