President Barack Obama has likely had "decision memo after decision memo after decision memo" laid on his desk concerning the ongoing hostilities in Syria, but no action has been taken," Sen. Bob Corker said Wednesday.
And now, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped in fill the void.
"Our ambassador cheered these folks on when this, quote, 'revolution' began, if you will," the Tennessee Republican told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show, during a discussion about the short-lived ceasefire in Aleppo ending.
"We've been to the refugee camps and told people that help was on the way, that we were going to be providing arms to their brothers and sons and fathers and, you know, we just never delivered in the way that we said that we would. We left them hanging, and this is a blight on our country."
There is no question that war crimes have been committed against the Syrian occupation, Corker said, including the "fact that [President Bashar al] Assad, you know, is removing people's genitals, torturing them, burning them. This is something that you would have expected maybe to occur 1,000 years ago, but there's no question that war crimes have been committed, that our nation did not do what we said we would do."
Further, Russian President Vladimir Putin is "not our natural friend," despite the "bromance that has been developing" between him and President-Elect Donald Trump, said Corker, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"When you began the red line issue, when he saw that we were unwilling to honor the pledge that we had made to the Syrian people, he began a robust move on the world stage and has unsettled Europe," Corker said. "Everyone's documented what's happening in the balance particulars, what's happened in eastern Ukraine and other places. He is now a force to be reckoned with because of our inaction and his action."
And as Trump takes the presidency, the situation in Syria will be decided, at least in its western portion, "in the manner that Russia decides. I mean, they took a bold step nine months ago, stepped into a vacuum that we were unwilling to fill, and they will control the destiny."
The United States, meanwhile, "can say what we want. We can talk big. We can give speeches at the United Nations. Putin is going to decide the future of at least the western portions of Syria. Now we still have the issue of ISIS."
While Corker did not directly accuse Putin of committing war crimes, he said there is no question that Russia and Iran supported Assad, who has.
"There's no question about his war crimes," Corker said. "What they've done in the civilian areas where they say that they're going in to kill terrorists, look, that has not been true. They've been killing the free Syrian rebels that we've been involved in in many ways that are known and in some ways that are unknown, but we know that. Everybody in the Middle East knows that."
Corker also addressed concerns about Russia's cyber attacks on U.S. systems, and said it is well known that hacking is nothing new.
"When I make a call, I'm assuming that the likelihood is that our enemies, by the way, and our friends likely, especially when I make a call in Washington, I'm assuming that plenty of people are attempting to listen to my phone calls," Corker said. "I mean, that's the way intelligence is gathered."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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