Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry says he would send U.S. troops back to Iraq to make sure Iran didn’t sweep into the country and take over.

"We're going to see Iran, in my opinion, move back in at literally the speed of light. They're going to move back in, and all of the work we've done — every young man that has lost his life in that country will have been for nothing. Because we've got a president that does not understand what's going on in that region," the Texas governor said during the ABC News presidential debate in New Hampshire Saturday night.

“I think we start talking with the Iraqi individuals there,” Perry said. “The idea that we allow the Iranians to come back into Iraq and take over that country, with all of the treasure, both in blood and money, that we have spent in Iraq, because this president wants to kowtow to his liberal, leftist base and move out those men and women. He could have renegotiated that time frame.”

“I think it is a huge error for us," Perry said.