Congratulations, Samantha Power: You played yourself on Syria

On Wednesday evening, Power tweeted out a graph of the number of people who died in Syria between 2011 and 2017 with the caption reading, “The human toll of Russia’s complicity.”

The caption is an obvious dig at the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with the Russian government in the 2016 election that directly resulted in his victory over Hillary Clinton and the greater point being that his friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin has only led to more deaths in the Syrian civil war. However, one would notice immediately that the vast majority of deaths that took place happened under the Obama administration.

If you crunch the numbers just from the graph, the death toll, as of October 2017, is estimated at 480,000+ Syrians. However, the last recorded point on the chart under the Obama administration shows the death toll to be estimated at 450,000. One can make the argument that Obama’s lack of action is responsible for over 93 percent of the current death toll in Syria.

The civil war has lasted for over six and a half years, dating back to March 2011, and has created a seismic shift in how many Western nations accept refugees from the war-torn region, including the United States. Under President Trump, the number of Syrian refugees entering the U.S. has dropped significantly from 25,000 in the first quarter of 2017 to 13,000 in the second quarter to 10,000 in the third, according to figures released by the Department of Homeland Security.

One of the greatest stains on former President Barack Obama’s legacy will be his inability to confront Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when he had a chance. And while former Ambassador Power has every right to criticize the Trump administration for not doing enough in Syria, her former boss has far more blood on his hands.