Newt Gingrich: ‘Assad is our enemy’

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich weighed in on the uprising in Syria on Wednesday, telling a Chicago radio station that he would “unilaterally ‘replace’ Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because he is running a ‘bad dictatorship,’" reported CBS.

"I can give you a three-second answer. Replace Assad,” said Gingrich when asked for a 30-second response/solution to the months-long uprising in Syria.

“I mean Assad is our enemy. He is an ally of Iran. It is a bad dictatorship. It is to our interest to get rid of dictators of this kind," he said.

From the Political Hotsheet:

Gingrich did not say how he would remove Assad, and acknowledged there would be "consequences" to such an overt U.S. action. He said that as president, it would be his job to manage them. "Now that means you have consequences and have to be much better at managing the consequences than this administration has been," he said on the Don Wade & Roma radio show. "But I think none the less getting rid of Assad will lead to a better future than keeping him there."

Listen to the Gingrich radio interview here.  

More from GlobalPost: Bashar al-Assad interview: Syrian president 'not guilty' about protest deaths

A United Nations report issued last month said that at least 4,000 civilians have died following months of a security crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Assad recently admitted that some Syrian security officers had a “brute reaction” to protesters, but denied ordering state-sponsored crackdown.