Bill Clinton isn’t fazed by the fact that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy is a complete mess. In fact, “who cares” how Syria’s agreement to overturn its chemical weapons came about?
The former President sat down with CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria this week to talk about Syria and a host of other topics. The full segment won’t air until Sunday, but the network previewed the interview on Tuesday morning.
During the clip, Clinton expresses his belief that it doesn’t matter how the deal with Syria came about.
“There are some who say, ‘Well, this gives the initiative to Putin,'” Clinton told Zakaria. “And — who cares how it came up? John Kerry got asked, ‘Well, what can we do to stop you from bombing?’ He said, ‘Make the problem go away.’ So Putin says, ‘Ok, I’ll do that.'”
The former President brushed aside claims that it gave Russia more leverage in the international community and that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would remain in power, calling that a “separate issue.”
“But there is inherent and enduring benefit in taking a step that has the potential to rid the world of these chemical weapons,” he added.
On Sunday, Obama himself appeared on ABC‘s ‘This Week‘ in an apparent attempt to combat his critics, some of whom have called his foreign policy “improvised” and “unsteady.” The President said he didn’t care about “style points,” but only about actually implementing an effective policy.
Clinton’s comment about Obama’s messy handling of Syria is reminiscent of his wife Hillary’s remarks during the aftermath of the Benghazi, Libya, attack in 2012 — another foreign policy debacle of the Obama administration. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing back in January 2013, the then-Secretary of State asked the Committee why it mattered how the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission was started.
“The fact is we had four dead Americans!” she exclaimed. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?”
(h/t The Hill)
