Wednesday on AM970’s “The John Gambling Show,” Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin explained Russia is not bombing ISIS in Syria, but instead civilians opposed to Bashar al-Assad, and President Putin “played” President Obama by bypassing their agreement to share information after meeting Monday.
Griffin said, “President Putin met with President Obama for 90 minutes on Monday in New York at the U.N. They had an arrangement of how they were going to share information to de-conflict militarily operations in Syria. Putin essentially bypassed that, I’m told by U.S. officials, and essentially sent a three-star Russian general into the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and said you have an hour to get your planes out of Northern Syria. Now the U.S. military has come out strong today saying they will not move their planes. They continued airstrikes against ISIS but this is leading to a very tense situation—a showdowns of sorts—and the U.S. military is in a terrible position over in Iraq and Syria.”
“What is outrageous is the president of the United States meets with the president of Russia and just 24 hours later, the Russians surprise the Americans and begin airstrikes in a country where the U.S. and members of the 41 nation coalition is operating and Russia is essentially going it alone. This is a huge problem. It will bolster Assad. Assad is the root of the problem. There would be no ISIS, there would be no Syrian opposition, if Assad were not there. Putin played the president and now it’s not clear how the White House and the Pentagon are going to respond.”
She continued, “Right now Putin realized he can move with impunity. There is nobody to stop him. He has teamed up now right under America’s noses in Baghdad. He is coordinating not only with Iran and Syria in Baghdad, but also the Iraqi government—the same government that the U.S. has basically came in to save and has been supporting with millions of dollars of aid and assistance. And now there is an intelligence coordination cell that U.S. intelligence is being shared most likely through the Iraqis with the Russians and Iranians. This is untenable.”
She added, “The Russians are playing chess, and the U.S.—I’m not even sure we are playing checkers.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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