On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Alex Marlow asked former UN Ambassador John Bolton about the situation in Aleppo, Syria, where the regime of dictator Bashar Assad has reportedly taken control of the city, with assistance from Russia and Iran.
“Well, I think this is a very significant victory for the Assad regime, Russia, and the ayatollahs in Tehran,” Bolton said. “Many experts on the conflict speculated that Russia and Syria wanted to wrap up the capture of Aleppo before Barack Obama left office because they knew he wasn’t going to do anything about it. There are still a few areas – one, I think, controlled by Kurdish forces, and perhaps a few holdouts – but basically this is a very significant victory for the Assad regime, and it represents real success for the Russian military support that they’ve given.”
“And it’s a further piece of evidence that as America has withdrawn its interest, presence, and influence in the region, the Russians have stepped in to take our place,” he added grimly. “They are emerging, sad to say, for the first time in almost fifty years, once again as a major player in the Middle East. That cannot be good news for America and its allies, like Israel and some of the friendly Arab regimes.”
Bolton said the victory in Aleppo “helps consolidate the position of the Assad regime, making it much more likely – never certain at this point, but much more likely to remain in power.”
“That’s a huge win for the ayatollahs in Iran as they strengthen their control over the Baghdad government, which is now effectively dominated by Shias and essentially a satellite of Iran – extending now with the comeback of the Assad regime in Syria, and obviously Hezbollah, which is now not only in Lebanon but a significant fighting force in Syria, as well,” he said. “You’ve got now a Russian airbase at Latakia in Syria, very near Israel’s northern border, and ISIS still very much a fighting force in what used to be Syria and Iraq, despite the slow-roll campaign that the Obama administration has been waging against it.”
“So all in all, the geographical terrain in the Middle East continues; the balance of forces, the balance of power continues to shift against the United States and its friends. If that trend continues, it’s only going to increase the threat to Israel as Iran continues to ramp up its terror-supporting activities, continues its pursuit of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons,” Bolton predicted.
On the subject of Israel, Marlow noted that Bolton recently spoke outside the United Nations to warn about President Obama launching an “offensive” against Israel during his final weeks in office.
Bolton said the conversation at the UN for months has been about how the “anti-Israel coalition” would “move a resolution, either in the Security Council or the General Assembly, to do one of several possible things: recognize a Palestinian state, try to limit Israel’s borders to the ’67 ceasefire lines; there are a thousand variations on what they could do.”
He added that “if the resolution were put into the Security Council, unlike every other American administration on a bipartisan basis, Obama would not veto such a resolution and might even endorse it.”
“Why now? Obviously, after the election, no political consequences for Obama or his political allies, and to do it before the Trump administration came in on January the 20th. It’s gotten precious little press attention, but I can just tell you from the corridor gossip at the United Nations, it remains alive. It’s very concerning to me, and that’s why I was happy to join in and try and sound the alarms,” he said.
Bolton said it was important to inform the public because “the mainstream media … are not covering this risk. They’re not looking into what might happen, what the Obama administration might do.”
“I think our members of Congress, in the House and Senate, need to be alerted to this, and I think people ought to make it clear that Obama should not violate what’s been a central bipartisan principle of American policy, which is that ultimate peace and security between Israel and its neighbors has to come from agreement by the parties themselves,” Bolton urged.
“It cannot be imposed from the outside, and that’s what the thrust of these resolutions is to do. Whatever the specific form, it’s a way to try and force Israel into a preconceived notion that the Israeli government and the Israeli people don’t accept. That’s why it needs to be stopped,” he said.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
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