Ben Carson said Thursday that he would "absolutely" put American troops on the ground in the Middle East to fight ISIS now, "from the information that I have."
The Republican presidential candidate made the comments a day after he said he was "never in favor of going into Iraq" and in a week when other Republicans have come out in favor of sending ground troops to fight the Islamic State.
On Thursday, Carson was being interviewed by conservative radio host Howie Carr on the Howie Carr Show when he was asked how he would address ISIS' presence in Iraq and Syria.
"We have to recognize that the jihadists have a goal of destroying us and our way of life," Carson answered. "And we have two choices—we can wait for them to do that or we can destroy them first. So I think that would be my goal, if I were President."
Carr then asked if Carson would "send U.S. ground troops back into the Middle East." Carson responded that "if that was necessary," he would, "absolutely," and further argued that our military had in the past been hampered by "people who have no idea what they're doing."
"If that was necessary, absolutely," he said. "I think, one of the things I've learned over the years is we have some incredible people—or at least we used to—in our military—with tremendous strategy and know-how. The problem is that we tried to micro-manage them. Micro-manage them by people who have no idea what they're doing. And that's resulted not only in a lot of loss of good people in the military but terrible morale there."
Carr pressed Carson on whether he meant it was necessary to send in ground troops "at this point." Carson clarified that he thought it was.
"In my opinion, yes," he said. "I haven't had a chance obviously to talk with all the military experts that I would respect but from what I can see and from the information that I have, absolutely. Because as you can see, they continue to gain ground. And that's a very important part of their ideology. And if you can deprive them of that, you've struck a major blow."
Later in the interview, Carson also contended that "what we're dealing with today" is different from the "much simpler al Qaeda" facing the country under President Bush and that the American public would support a ground invasion "if it's explained to them."
"I think if it's explained to them," he said. "If they understand what's at stake. We can't have the same mindset that we had 10 or 15 years ago, when we were dealing with a much simpler al Qaeda than what we're dealing with today. The stakes are extraordinary at this point. And if we don't play it the right way, everything else is going to be irrelevant."
Carson finally claimed that an Arab coalition hadn't formed to send ground troops to fight ISIS because "they need to have a leader."
"Why should U.S. troops go in if the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Saudis aren't willing to put their troops on the ground to fight ISIS?" Carr asked.
"Why is there a coalition not forming?" Carson said. "Because there's nobody to form behind. They need to have a leader. When you show appropriate leadership and you show that you can take the war to the enemy, you will have people who will get on that bandwagon. But they're not gonna get on it before that happens."
Carson concluded by paraphrasing Winston Churchill: "Winston Churchill put it best when he said, you need to fight your enemy today, while you can beat him or you will fight him tomorrow for your life."
