Romney slams Obama on Syria amid Russian airstrikes 
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By Kristina Wong - 09/30/15
Mitt Romney, 2012 GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governer, slammed President Obama on his handling of the crisis in Syria.
"What I found with the president is that he has consistently painted himself in a corner and said, 'OK, now what would you do?' " he said at the Washington Ideas Forum.
"And when you've painted yourself in that kind of corner, many times the options are pretty limited," he said. "There aren't the kind of options now that there were three and a half years ago."
Romney's criticism came as Russia began bombing in Syria on Wednesday, reportedly hitting non-Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets despite Moscow's assurances that it was conducting a campaign against terrorists.
Romney and President Obama had faced off on Russia during a debate in October 2012, when the president famously ridiculed his GOP rival for saying that Russia was the U.S.'s "No. 1 geopolitical foe."
"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years," Obama said during that debate.
Romney even cited 2016 Democratic presidential contender and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's support for arming moderate Syrian rebels early on in the conflict.
"Even Hillary Clinton said we should coalesce leadership among the rebel forces in Syria, we should arm them, we should train them, we should support them and help them defeat Assad. We did not do that.
"We also should have had in place a status of forces agreement [in Iraq]," he continued. "As a result of those two bad decisions, we now have ISIS."
"We're in a difficult position right now," he said. "His rhetoric is soaring, but the results have been terribly disappointing. and his foreign policy — disastrous," he said.
Romney said whether one agreed with the policies of former President George W. Bush, "he at least believed that America should be a leader ... and took actions as a leader this president has not."
Romney, however, did not offer any new suggestions for what to do going forward in Syria. He suggested that the U.S. should continue conducting airstrikes against ISIS.
"At this stage, I believe you do have to concentrate on eliminating ISIS. You don't let the Russians tell us that we can't fly over Syria," he said.
Romney said he would not rule out putting U.S. boots on the ground in Syria, if Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other allies were not willing to do so.
Although he did not say how, he said the U.S. had to "isolate Assad."
"Ultimately we want to see Assad go ... the president said that correctly," he said. "Russia complicates things right now.
"Russia has out-gamed us once again. They're diverting their heinous actions in Ukraine," he said. "We cannot allow ourselves to be diverted from the task at hand which is to defeat ISIS and ultimately to replace Assad."
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/255456-romney-slams-obama-on-syria-amid-russian-airstrikes
