US: Democratic debate focuses on Daesh, Assad

Democratic presidential hopefuls sparred over the removal of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad while all three agreed on the destruction of Daesh in the third democratic debate Saturday.

In the last debate of the year hosted by ABC News at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, national security was the number one topic as it was the first Democratic debate since San Bernardino shooting in California, which left 14 people dead.

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley and Senator Bernie Sanders both said that defeating Daesh should be the priority over the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued that both should be tackled at the same time, a policy that the administration currently follows.

“We will not get the support on the ground in Syria to dislodge ISIS [Daesh] if the fighters there who are not associated with ISIS, but whose principal goal is getting rid of Assad, don't believe there is a political, diplomatic channel that is ongoing,” Clinton said noting her support for the UN Security Council’s resolution on Friday that committed to a political transition in Syria.

She also said that she has advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria in order to create a safe haven for refugees inside Syria against both Assad and Daesh.

Sanders accused Clinton of “being a little bit too aggressive [in terms of Syria crisis] without knowing what the unintended consequences might be”.

“We could get rid of Assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit ISIS,” he said. “I think in Syria the primary focus now must be on destroying ISIS and working over the years to get rid of Assad. That's the secondary issue.”

O’Malley also agreed with Sanders saying that, with regards to the Syrian crisis, Clinton was taking a similar stance with Libya which he described as a trap.

“I know Secretary Clinton was gleeful when [Libyan leader Muammar] Gaddafi was torn apart. And the world, no doubt is a better place without him. But look, we didn't know what was happening next. And we fell into the same trap with Assad, saying -- as if it's our job to say, Assad must go,” the former governor said.

Libya descended into chaos and bloodshed following the ouster and death of strongman Muammar Gaddafi in late 2011.

All candidates reiterated their position against deploying U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria. However, Clinton argued in favor of the deployment of special operations forces, which she said was not comparable to sending a large number of troops into Afghanistan or Iraq.

The breach by Sanders’s aides of Clinton’s proprietary voter data was also expected to be one of the hot topics of the debate but the candidates preferred to ease the heightened tension.

Sanders apologized to Clinton over his campaign’s breach of her voter data information. The former top diplomat accepted the apology.

The Democratic National Committee provides access to a database of basic voter ID information: name, phone number and address of Democratic voters.

Each campaign uses the information to contact voters and collect their own data like the voter's support level for a candidate, how persuadable the voter is, and specific issues the voter is interested in. This data is normally protected by a firewall.

Earlier this week it came out that at least one Sanders staffer breached into the Clinton campaign’s data.

The Sanders campaign was shortly banned from access to the database by the DNC but his team claims that it happened as a result of DNC for it sent mistakenly Clinton team’s data to them.

Sanders fired at least one person involved in the breach and promised to fire others who are found out to have been involved.