Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz suggested President Obama use Ronald Reagan's dictum of "Trust But Verify" regarding the offer of Syrian to hand over its chemical weapons to international control Monday on Piers Morgan Live:
MORGAN: Why should the American people trust either Vladimir Putin or President Assad over this? And if the answer is they shouldn't, why is President Obama going along with it?
WOLFOWITZ: Well, I think he's exploring it. I think President Reagan's dictum here applies: Trust, but verify, and verification is absolutely critical. To be honest, I think part of the problem here is far too much emphasis has been placed on this one final provocation of use of chemical weapons. Whoever used them, and we're quite certain they were used and it seems probable who used them, but 100,000 people have been killed in a country that is critical to the whole region. Two million refugees are destabilizing neighboring countries. Iran, which is a declared enemy of the United States, is 100 percent backing Assad. I think what the president needs to say is not that we have no stake in the civil war. To the contrary, we have a stake, there are Syrians that are ready to fight, we don't want Americans fighting and dying, and frankly there are other countries ready to pay for it. But if we don't help those Syrians now who are prepared to fight, I think Senator Lieberman's absolutely right. Five years from now or ten years from now, we may in fact see boots on the ground and dead Americans, and I don't want to see that.