Obama Condemns Russia’s Role in Bombing Syria

WASHINGTON — President Obama forcefully denounced Russia on Friday for its new bombing campaign in Syria and said the United States would not cooperate, declaring that Moscow’s actions will lead it into a “quagmire” and make the crisis in the Middle East worse not better.

Even as the Kremlin widened its bombings in Syria, striking Islamic State territory for the first time, Mr. Obama said that Russia’s military intervention “won’t work” and that it would drive legitimate opposition groups underground and provide a recruiting tool for Islamic radicals.

In his first comments since Russia began bombing targets in Syria that include opposition forces supported by the United States, Mr. Obama repeated his demand that any resolution of the four-year-old civil war must include the departure of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and a longtime Moscow ally.

“We’re very clear in sticking to our belief in our policy that the problem here is Assad and the brutality he’s inflicted on the Syrian people and that it has to stop,” Mr. Obama said. While the United States will work with “all parties” to broker a transition, “we are not going to cooperate with a Russian campaign to simply try to destroy anybody who is disgusted and fed up with Mr. Assad’s behavior.”

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mr. Obama also bristled at domestic criticism that he has failed to articulate a workable strategy for pushing out Mr. Assad and defeating the Islamic State, also called ISIS and ISIL.

Mr. Obama rejected the idea that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had seized the initiative and outmaneuvered the United States.

“Mr. Putin had to go into Syria not out of strength but out of weakness because his client, Mr. Assad, was crumbling and it was insufficient for him to simply send them arms and money; now he’s got to put in his own planes and his own pilots,” he said.

The president added that the Russians do not have as many supporters in the crisis as the United States does. “Iran and Assad make up Mr. Putin’s coalition at the moment,” he said. “The rest of the world makes up ours.” - Read More at NYT

Obama Condemns Russia’s Role in Bombing Syria

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