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I cannot either change or do anything bad or good to the Syrian people and Syrian citizens.

I explained that we would like to adjust our position on the Syrian question to theirs, as, in our view, they are the decisive factor in our relations with our neighbors, and Syria is unimportant.

We've got a very difficult situation created by this embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. And that's not getting better. It's getting worse. The carnage for the people of Syria is horrific, and it's quite frankly too little, too late to reverse a lot of that.

I know something quite sure. We'll never have peace with this Syrian regime. They'll never give us relief, and we'll never forget that.

Just this week, Syria broke off all relations with the United States military and the CIA.

What we did say is that it is up to the Syrians themselves to decide how to run the country, how to introduce the reforms, what kind reforms, without any outside interference.

I have sympathy for the people in Syria, and I do think there should be a worldwide response, but we should act cautiously.

We have a failed state in Syria.

There is no one leader that's going to unify all of Syria that suddenly everyone is going to go, 'Yes, that's a logical place.' They're not unified. They don't have a setup succession like we do in the United States.