Friday on Newsmax TV’s “The Hard Line,” Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said Russian President Vladimir Putin knows President Barack Obama will not fight back against the Russian airstrikes on Syrian civilians who oppose President Bashar al-Assad so he slapped him in the face by sitting down with Obama at the United Nations “and just two days later have some military attaché deliver a statement to our people in an embassy in Baghdad saying that they are carrying out these bombing missions.”
King said, “Unfortunately, he [Putin] believes that President Obama is not going to fight back … He will not fight back unless it’s a glaring attack. I think what you are going to see is — it’s going to be incremental moves by Putin, and President Obama is going to say, ‘Do you really want to go to war over this?’ And we’re going to threaten more sanctions. Just like in Ukraine. It was not a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but they take piece by piece, region by region — and that is what we’re going to see in Syria. They’re expanding.”
He continued, “I don’t think you’re going to see anything frontally against us by Putin. You’re going to see just this type of slow aggression, gradually increasing his position, making it clear though that the U.S. is weak. I mean what more of a slap in the face can you have to have Putin sit down with President Obama at the U.N. and just two days later have some Military attaché deliver a statement to our people in an embassy in Baghdad saying that they are carring out these bombing missions. That is unprecedented as far as any type alliance or any type of cooperation. It’s just a slap at the U.S. and Putin is not doing it to be macho, he is doing it to send a signal. This began two years ago when we had to allies in the Middle East —when President Obama said the red line was there. He was going to attack. He didn’t. Our allies have lost faith in us which is why Egypt and Saudi Arabia are dealing with the Russians as far as the weapons.”
He added, “We are losing our position in the Middle East and that builds up Iran and it weakens our allies.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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