Why not start Saturday off with a good chuckle?
(Fox News) President Barack Obama warned Russia on Friday against doubling down on sending support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, casting recent buildup of Russian military equipment and personnel in Syria in an effort to help prop up the embattled leader.
“The strategy they’re pursuing right now of doubling down on Assad is a mistake,” Obama said during a town hall with U.S. military personnel.
I’m surprised we didn’t something about this being a 20th Century policy or something.
Russia denies it’s trying to build up Assad’s military and instead has claimed its increased military presence is part of an international effort to help defeat the Islamic State. Russian Foreign Miniser Sergey Lavrov called on world powers to join Russia in that pursuit, arguing that Syria’s army is the most efficient force to fight extremists in the Middle East.
You cannot defeat Islamic State with air strikes only,” Lavrov said, a clear dig at the White House’s strategy. “It’s necessary to cooperate with ground troops and the Syrian army is the most efficient and powerful ground force to fight the IS.”
We all know that is somewhat BS, that this is all about supporting Assad, but, if the US and NATO allies were fighting ISIS more strongly, Russia would have no excuse. Had Obama and SoS Hillary Clinton took the side of those trying to push out Assad during the Arab Spring, rather than referring to Assad as a “reformer”, things might have been different.
Furthermore, Russia has invited the US to join them in cooperation, to make sure that there are no unintended military incidents, which, sadly, totally punks Obama and current SoS John Kerry.
Diplomats in Moscow say the Kremlin is happy for the West to believe it is building up its military in Syria, calculating that this will give it more bargaining power in any peace talks.
That’s what Reuters calls “bargaining power”. After all Russia has witness under the witless Obama/Clinton/Kerry foreign policy, they may have it.
Obama can wag his finger and yammer all he wants: Russia, like most nations, sees weakness. They saw red lines set, then Obama doing nothing but attempting to shift the burden over to Congress. They see the weakness of the Iran deal. They saw weakness when Russia invaded Ukraine. They saw weakness when Obama refused the missile system in Poland. They see “leading from behind”. The list goes on an on. Any finger wagging was surely met with laughter in Russia and Syria. Which is bad for the United States, which has been weakened tremendously under Obama/Clinton/Kerry.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
I see no problem with the Russians getting into this. I would be like us entering Mexico, maybe to stop the flood of immigrants, sounds good to me. But the issue is that Syria is in Russia’s backyard and thus their sphere of influence. They are the only ones that can really take on the issue of stabilizing the area. We could do nothing, especially as our liberal wing are cowards.
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