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And so the right course for us is working through our partners and with our own resources to identify responsible parties within Syria, organize them, bring them together in a— in a form of— of— if not government, a form of— of council that can take the lead in Syria, and then make sure they have the arms necessary to defend themselves. We do need to make sure that they don't have arms that get into the— the wrong hands. Those arms could be used to hurt us down the road. We need to make sure as well that we coordinate this effort with our allies and particularly with— with— with Israel. But the Saudis and the Qatari and— and— and the Turks are all very concerned about this. They're willing to work with us. We need to have a very effective leadership effort in Syria, making sure that the— the— the insurgents there are armed and that the insurgents that become armed are people who will be the responsible parties.
Recognize I believe that Assad must go. I believe he will go. But I believe we want to make sure that we have the relationships of friendship with the people that take his place such that in the years to come we see Syria as a— as a friend and Syria as a responsible party in the Middle East. This— this is a critical opportunity for America.
And what I'm afraid of is that we've watched over the past year or so first the president saying, well, we'll let the U.N. deal with it, and Assad— excuse me, Kofi Annan came in and— and said, we're going to try— have a cease-fire.
That didn't work. Then it looked to the Russians and said, see if you can do something. we should. We should be playing the leadership role there, not on the ground with military—
MR. SCHIEFFER: All right.
MR. ROMNEY:— by the leadership role.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: We are— we playing the leadership role. We organized the "Friends of Syria." We are mobilizing humanitarian support and support for the opposition. And we are making sure that that those we help are those who will be friends of ours in the long term and friends of our allies in the region over the long term.
But you know, going back to Libya, because this is an example of— of how we make choices, you know, when we went into Libya and we were able to immediately stop the massacre there because of the unique circumstances and the coalition that we had helped to organize, we also had to make sure that Moammar Gadhafi didn't stay there. And to the governor's credit, you supported us going into Libya and the coalition that we organized. But when it came time to making sure that Gadhafi did not stay in power, that he was captured, Governor, your suggestion was that this was mission creep, that this was mission muddle.
Imagine if we had pulled out at that point. That— Moammar Gadhafi had more American blood on his hands than any individual other than Osama bin Laden. And so we were going to make sure that we finished the job. That's part of the reason why the Libyans stand with us. But we did so in a careful, thoughtful way, making certain that we knew who we were dealing with, that those forces of moderation on the ground were ones that we could work with. And we have to take the same kind of steady, thoughtful leadership when it comes to Syria. That's exactly what we're doing.
