BARNICLE: What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?
JOHNSON: About?
BARNICLE: Aleppo.
JOHNSON: And what is Aleppo?
BARNICLE: You’re kidding.
JOHNSON: No.
BARNICLE: Aleppo is in Syria. It’s the — it’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis.
JOHNSON: OK, got it, got it.
BARNICLE: OK.
JOHNSON: Well, with regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess. I think that the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that at an end. But when we’ve aligned ourselves with — when we’ve supported the opposition of the Free Syrian Army — the Free Syrian Army is also coupled with the Islamists.
And then the fact that we’re also supporting the Kurds and this is — it’s just — it’s just a mess. And that this is the result of regime change that we end up supporting. And, inevitably, these regime changes have led a less-safe world.
GEIST: So alliance with Russia is the solution to Syria. Do you think Vladimir Putin and Russia are good and a reliable partner?
JOHNSON: Well, I think diplomatically that that is the — that that has to be the solution, is joining hands with Russia to bring — to bring this civil war to an end.
BRZEZINSKI: Joe?
SCARBOROUGH: So, Aleppo is the center of a lot of people’s concerns across the planet about the terrible humanitarian crisis that’s unfolding not only in Syria but, especially, in Aleppo.
You asked, “What is Aleppo?” Do you really think that foreign policy is so insignificant that somebody running for President of the United States shouldn’t even know what Aleppo is, where Aleppo is, why Aleppo is so important?
JOHNSON: Well, no, I do understand Aleppo, and I — I understand the crisis that is going on. But when we involve ourselves militarily — when we involve ourselves in these humanitarian issues we end up — we end up with a situation that in most cases is not better, and in many cases ends up being worse.
And we find ourselves always — politicians are up against the wall and asked what to do about these things and this is why we end up committing military force in areas that, like I say, at the end of the day have an unintended consequence of making things worse.
