Obama Calls Hillary Clinton's Criticism on Syria Horse Dung
It's a load of "horsesh*t."
That's how President Barack Obama feels about the advice of Hillary Clinton and a bipartisan school of lawmakers who believe that he should have armed Syrian rebels to prevent the rise of ISIS and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in that country.
According to a report from The Daily Beast, Obama ripped the suggestion at a bipartisan meeting on foreign policy at the White House.
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"Just before the congressional recess, President Obama invited over a dozen Senate and House leaders from both parties to the White House to talk about foreign policy. According to two lawmakers inside the meeting, Obama became visibly agitated when confronted by bipartisan criticism of the White House's policy of slow-rolling moderate Syrian rebels' repeated requests for arms to fight the Assad regime and ISIS," noted The Daily Beast.
"According to one of the lawmakers, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) asked the president a long question that included sharp criticisms of President Obama's handling of a number of foreign policy issues — including Syria, ISIS, Russia, and Ukraine," it continued.
"Obama answered Corker at length. Then, the president defended his administration's actions on Syria, saying that the notion that many have put forth regarding arming the rebels earlier would have led to better outcomes in Syria was 'horseshit," it added.
Obama defended his decision to not arm Syrian rebels again in a Friday interview with The New York Times. It was a "fantasy," he said, to believe that arming the rebels could have made a difference, "that was never in the cards."
In a recent interview with The Atlantic however, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is also the presumptive favorite to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016 should she decide to run, disagreed with Obama's "overly cautious" approach to foreign policy and said it was a "failure" to help the Syrian rebels that led to the rise of ISIS.
"Clinton had many kind words for the 'incredibly intelligent' and 'thoughtful' Obama, and she expressed sympathy and understanding for the devilishly complicated challenges he faces. But she also suggested that she finds his approach to foreign policy overly cautious, and she made the case that America needs a leader who believes that the country, despite its various missteps, is an indispensable force for good," explained The Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg.
"At one point, I mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-policy doctrine: 'Don't do stupid sh*t' (an expression often rendered as 'Don't do stupid stuff' in less-than-private encounters)," continued Goldberg in his report.
He said Clinton noted of Obama's doctrine: "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."
"She softened the blow by noting that Obama was 'trying to communicate to the American people that he's not going to do something crazy,' but she repeatedly suggested that the U.S. sometimes appears to be withdrawing from the world stage," he added.
