Some GOP presidential candidates and Republican neocons are calling more urgently for action to block Russian intervention in the Middle East.

To conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, that’s madness.

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“Who do they think rises if Assad falls?” he asked Monday on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” referring to embattled Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad. “What is the matter with these people?”

Buchanan, a two-time former presidential candidate, said there are only two plausible alternatives to Assad — al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. He suggested that 2016 presidential contender Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is off-base when he suggested recently that both Assad and the Islamic State need to go.

“As a serious foreign policy, it’s almost a disqualifier,” Buchanan said, adding that Rubio is trying to position himself to appeal to Republican primary voters who dislike the anti-Israel Assad.

Buchanan said Americans should not overreact to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent move to send military forces to Syria. Putin, he said, is trying to help his country’s only ally in the region and protect Russia’s access to the Mediterranean Sea.

“What Russia is doing in Syria is quite simple and understandable,” he said. “It’s quite natural. We’re in Iraq trying to help our guys.”

Buchanan said there should not be fear that Putin has grander designs on the Middle East than those limited goals.

“Putin would need 200,000 men to hold on to all of Syria. And what would it avail him?” he said.

Buchanan said concentrating on Assad, who has never attacked the United States, distracts from more serious foes who would be strengthened by the dictator’s removal.

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“Our enemy is ISIS,” he said. “Our enemy is al Qaeda.”

Buchanan said the philosophy dominating American foreign policy is based on flawed assumptions about how much can reasonably be accomplished in the region. He noted that he supported attacking Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“But the idea that we’re going to replicate Iowa in the Hindu Kush was ridiculous,” he said. “The American people don’t believe any longer that these wars were really worth the enormous cost in American dead and wounded, and trillions of dollars.”