Krauthammer: Russia ‘Utterly Determined To Achieve Their Strategist Objectives’ In Syria, Obama ‘Has No Strategic Objectives’

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” columnist Charles Krauthammer argued that in Syria, Russia is “utterly determined to achieve their strategic objectives, and Obama has no strategic objectives.”

Krauthammer said, “[T]he Russians are utterly determined to achieve their strategic objectives, and Obama has no strategic objectives. We heard the State Department say we have tried this reasonable approach. Yeah, they applied a reasonable approach, with an adversary in Putin, whose assumptions about this war are totally different. Obama believed that you don’t solve problems like these through force. They can’t be. There’s no military solution. It has to be done by diplomacy. That would be great if the other side had the same thought. Unfortunately, Putin assumes, and is correct in assuming, that some civil wars have a military outcome. … And this idea that you solve it by diplomacy, and withhold any application of pressure is simply a fantasy. Five years ago, when the civil war began, we had the advantage. We were in control of the region. We could have put the Syrian air force out of business, by destroying the airplanes and hitting the airfields. That’s all we had to do. No war, no invasion. The Russians weren’t there. We did nothing. Now we have no assets, the Russians have all the assets. That’s why we walked away, because the diplomatic approach has been totally shown to be bankrupt.”

He added that “in most of these instances,” Obama is “trying to prevent a calamity, like the fall of Saigon, on his watch. He doesn’t want to see it happen in Libya. He doesn’t want to see our side lose in Yemen, but these are stopgap measures.”

Krauthammer continued, “There’s escalation everywhere, because they understand Obama is so risk-averse, nothing will be done between now and the end of his presidency.”

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