Politics & Government

Republicans Congressional Candidates on Foreign Policy, Israel and Syria

To help readers make a choice in the Republican primary election on Tuesday, Patch asked the three candidates about their experience with foreign policy.

Posted by Susan Petroni

On Tuesday, voters in the 5th Congressional District will decide which of three Republican candidates will face off against a Democratic challenger to be the district's newest U.S. Representative. The final election is in December.

The three Republican names on the Tuesday, Oct. 15 primary ballot are Frank Addivinola, of Malden, Mike Stoppa, of Holliston, and Tom Tierney of Framingham.

Patch asked each of the candidates a series of questions. The answers to those questions will be published now through Sunday. 

Today's report focuses on foreign policy. Patch asked: "What experience do you have in foreign policy? What are your views on Israel and Syria?"


Addivinola: "As all other candidates in this race, I do not have a direct experience in foreign policy. However, it is absolutely clear that Israel is one of our closest allies, and their safety is our national interest.  In terms of Syria, and as a general rule, we should NOT be involved in civil wars.  We cannot impose our democratic principles of freedom with military actions, we should promote them around the world with piece and reason.  We must remain the world’s leader in terms of military might, but we should exercise our power with extreme caution and as a measure of last resort."

Stoppa: "Israel is our staunchest ally in the Middle East - arguably in the world. Israel's security should be our highest priority.

The civil war going on today in Syria grew out of the Syrian uprising in April of 2011 and was a part of the broader Arab Spring that began engulfing the region at about that time. The war itself can be nominally dated to the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) by a group of Syrian military officers who defected around July 29, 2011. The FSA possesses mostly small arms, although recent defections of portions of the Syrian Air Force have boosted their military capacity somewhat. While the FSA is in some sense an “umbrella group” for the rebels, there are as many as 1200 separategroups, including, in addition to former regime military members, secular pro-democracy forces and Islamic 
Fundamentalist groups, whose only unifying factor is the desire to topple Assad.

While the Free Syrian Army does not itself take weapons from al Qaeda (they are supplied by and large from Saudi Arabia and Qatar), two Islamist groups in particular do. These are the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Al Nusra has become distinguished by their use of suicide bombers in the conflict and a third Islamist group, Ahrar al Sham, has specialized in roadside bombs. These groups, and others (such as the Kurdish Democratic Union Party) are fighting amongst themselves even as they battle the Assad regime.

I believe that the relative strength of the Islamic groups in the rebellion can be traced, at least in part, to the feckless posture of the Obama Administration with respect to the conflict and their irresolute support of secular pro-democracy and former regime military elements, starting when the war began in 2011. Similar claims can be made, of course, for Administration’s handling of Libya and Egypt."

Tierney: "Experience - - - I don’t have any and neither do any of the other candidates, but I’ve studied foreign policy intensely.

Israel - - - They’re our closest ally in the MidEast and must be defended.

Syria - - - They exist as a client state, neighbor and surrogate of Iran who is currently our most serious problem on the Planet.  Iran has threatened to nuke Israel, some of their leaders are truly crazy and they must be stopped, using whatever it takes, from getting the Bomb."


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