While the media continues to happily press Obama’s narrative that everyone in the world loves him, Putin is humiliating him and the United States, by warning that they’ll shoot down U.S. planes that attempt to strike Assad’s forces.
From ABC News:
Russia has warned the United States not to intervene militarily in Syria against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, threatening that it may shoot down any aircraft attempting to launch strikes.
In a bluntly worded statement, a spokesman for Russia’s defense ministry warned that Russia and the Syrian government had deployed sufficient air defenses to block any potential attacks.
It follows rumbling in Washington that the White House may be considering launching strikes against some Syrian regime military targets as an alternative option for moving forward in the Syrian conflict after the collapse of U.S.-Russian cease-fire negotiations.
This is further embarrassment for Obama, who announced that “Assad must go!” more than five years ago. Russia allies itself with Assad, and has helped him by bombing anti-government forces, including many civilians.
The Russians were responding to reports that Obama was planning airstrikes in Syria:
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Pentagon was presenting the Obama administration with the option of strikes at meetings this week. The strikes would be intended to increase the pressure on the Assad regime and Moscow to halt assaults on civilians and to return to possible peace negotiations.
The strikes are now back on the table but President Obama is still very unlikely to approve them, experts have said.
Obama is driven purely by self-interest here. He wants to do as little as possible to satisfy his critics, who are shaming him about the death and destruction in Syria happening under his watch. He’s basically running out the clock. And Putin is taking advantage.
The other thing to note is how the media is reporting the Russian involvement as little as possible. They’re all horrified at the civilian deaths under the bombings, but rarely mention who’s doing the bombing.
Meanwhile, “reset” Hillary waits in the wings to screw up our foreign policy some more, while emperor Trump salivates at the thought of letting his BFF Putin do whatever he wants…