"The more you see the incompetence of this administration — and the more I see a completely disjointed Republican response — it's stunning," Santorum told Newsmax TV's Steve Malzberg when asked if he's eyeing a GOP nomination.
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"To go along with this president and to give him authority, as most of the Republican leaders have, is another sign that the Republican leadership is completely out of touch with the serious problems that are facing this country."
"We have to have somebody out there to make sure that common sense and the values that made this country great are being reflected.
"So I'm going to be out there making sure that happens, whether I'm a candidate or not. We'll make that decision down the road."
Santorum said he was not impressed by President Barack Obama's speech about Syria and his plea to Congress to delay a vote because of the possible intervention of Russia.
"I think it offended a lot of Americans when you have a president who's acting like America is not exceptional and not leading at all, and having [Russian President] Vladimir Putin being exalted on the world stage as a peacemaker because of the folly of this president," he said.
"For the president, in a speech, to make the case that little children are being killed and that we have to act to protect ourselves ... against the use of chemical and weapons of mass destruction and then, in the next sentence, say, but we're not going to act and I'm telling the Congress not to act and if we're successful in this negotiation, we'll never act, OK? Your head spins."
Santorum said he is against a military strike against Syria because it could easy mushroom into something far bigger.
"What we have is a situation where the pro-democracy rebels are an insignificant part of the rebel movement and the ones who are leading that movement are, in fact, al-Qaida, and we don't have an interest in a fight between al-Qaida and Hezbollah and Iran," he said.
"So that's sort of where I come down right now is, No. 1, that we don't have a dog in this fight; No. 2, the last thing I'm going to do, if I'm a senator or congressman, is give this president the power to use military force, which could expand the scope and scale of this conflict."
Santorum called Obama "a president who just doesn't understand the nature of the enemy, doesn't understand how dangerous this world is, and he is fecklessly sleepwalking through this incredibly important crisis and endangering American security by doing so."
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