Ben Carson would make Isis “look like losers” by “destroying their caliphate”, he told the Republican debate on Tuesday in language that strongly echoed his rival candidate Donald Trump.



When asked during the Fox Business News debate in Milwaukee about the decision of the Obama administration to deploy 50 members of the special forces in Syria and leave 10,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan, the retired neurosurgeon’s approach to Isis seemed to mimic the language of his top Republican rival.

“We have to say, how do we make them look like losers?” the retired neurosurgeon said. “And I think the way to make them look like losers, we have to destroy their caliphate.”

He further echoed the businessman and reality TV star’s rhetoric about taking the terrorist group’s oil. Carson said: “Outside of Anbar in Iraq there’s a big energy field. Take that from them, take all of that land from them, we could do that.” The retired neurosurgeon said that could be done “fairly easily”.

Carson did not directly address the continued presence of American troops in Afghanistan but did say that sending 50 members of the special forces to Syria “is better than not having them there”.

The Republican presidential candidate also said of the Middle East: “The Chinese are there as well as the Russians, and you have all kinds of factions there.”

While Russian military personnel are currently flying combat missions in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime, there are no known members of the Chinese armed forces currently engaged in any conflict in the Middle East.

Carson has struggled on foreign policy issues in the past. In a March interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, he fumbled repeatedly on questions about the Middle East and Russia. Hewitt eventually compared Carson’s ignorance of geopolitics to that of 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Carson has fumbled on non-policy questions about the Middle East as well. He repeatedly insisted last week that the pyramids in Egypt were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain.

Not only is that statement contradicted by archeological evidence that the pyramids were built as tombs, the Bible explicitly says Joseph stored grain in cities.

In national polls, Carson is currently in a virtual tie with Trump among Republican primary voters.