A Quote by Fiona Hill
Few issues better illustrate the limits of the Obama administration's 'reset' with Russia than the crisis in Syria.
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When the Obama administration announced its 'reset' of relations with Russia in 2009, Americans never expected that it would include making Vladimir Putin the de facto U.S. ambassador to Syria in 2013.
President Obama took charge of the Oval Office seven years ago. He promised a positive reset in relations with Russia. But with the radioactive poisoning of a British spy in London, the downing of passenger jets over Europe, and the aggressive advances of Russian forces from Ukraine to Syria, President Putin of Russia has rebuked Mr. Obama.
Russia is emerging as an essential diplomatic and security partner for the U.S. in Syria, despite the Obama administration's opposition to Moscow's support for President Bashar al-Assad.
Donald Trump can say hey, did she [Hillary Clinton] short-circuit when she reset the relationship with Vladimir Putin and now Russia is, according to "The New York Times" article today, Russia is in control in Syria?
If the Obama regime gave a hoot about 'humanitarian crisis,' the Obama regime would not have orchestrated humanitarian crisis in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen.
Obama's 'reset' with Russia and 'pivot' to Asia never materialized.
I think it was going to be hard to work with Russians on Syria. There is some potential overlap between the U.S. and Russia in that the Russians don't want to see the Syria situation unravel to a point where they have to escalate their own involvement. But at the moment, I don't see the U.S. and Russia on the same page in Syria. Russia seems much more interested in consolidating government control over liberated areas. It seems to me that the U.S. and Russia are proving they can disagree for independent reasons in any number of theaters.
We have two thousand nuclear weapons on the trigger alert right now and Hillary Clinton wants to start an air war with Russia, a nuclear-armed power, over Syria as the means of addressing ISIS and the crisis in Syria.
I've said this before and I'm very proud of it, that when it comes to judgment, having run a hard race against Senator [Barack] Obama at the time, he turned to me to be secretary of State. And when it comes to the biggest counterterrorism issues that we faced in this administration, namely whether or not to go after bin Laden, I was at that table, I was exercising my judgment to advise the president on what to do, on that, on Iran, on Russia on China, on a whole raft of issues.
That was an exception within the [Barack] Obama administration's economic policy, a crisis that he inherited from the previous administration, and felt it was essential to carry through on.
Russia remains an adversary to the United States. We have some overlapping interests. It would be better if our relationship was better. But our relationship is not good right now because of Vladimir Putin. There are steps that I think that we should be taking that we should have taken under the Obama administration. For instance, providing defensive weaponry to Ukraine. I encourage the President and the administration to take a look at those steps.
George W. Bush tried working with the Russians after 9/11; Obama had the reset. Both presidents achieved less than they wanted, but they both achieved something. Those policies made sense, and it's to the credit of both Presidents Bush and Obama that even as they reached out to Russia, they did not sacrifice core American interests, or core American values. We didn't give the Russians on the altar of better relations other countries. We were able to do two things at once.
Hillary Clinton said her number one priority was a reset with Russia. That reset resulted in the invasion of Ukraine.
Other than our disagreement over Syria, I would say our relationship with Russia is very good and we are seeking to broaden and deepen it. Twenty million Russians are Muslims. Like Russia, we have an interest in fighting radicalism and extremism. We both have an interest in stable energy markets. Even the disagreement over Syria is more of a tactical one than a strategic one. We both want a unified Syria that is stable in which all Syrians enjoy equal rights.
I think we have to knock out ISIS. Right now Syria is fighting ISIS. We have people who want to fight both at the same time. But Syria is no longer Syria; Syria is Russia and Iran, who she made strong, and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation and very rich nation very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. I believe we have to get ISIS.
On issues like Ukraine, on issues like Syria, we've had very significant differences [with Russia].
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