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Dec. 9, 2024 - Dennis Prager Show
09:00
Obama's Leadership Led to Syrian Crisis
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Damascus, this is in Damascus, Syrian rebels seized the capital Damascus unopposed yesterday after a lightning advance that sent President Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Russia after 13 years of civil war and six decades of his family's autocratic rule.
Let me just go back real quick.
13 years ago, you guys may or may not recall.
A lot of people don't talk about this, but it's absolutely fascinating to me.
Guys, I'm telling you, you guys remember Barack Obama's red line?
You had Syria that was reported to have had sarin gas at the time.
Sarin gas could kill you.
I mean, it's a horrible death, a very painful and excruciating death where you suffocate to death within minutes.
At the time, there were some reports that the weapons of mass destruction that...
That, excuse me, George W. Bush was never able to find in Iraq had gone into Syria.
And even the New York Times had written a column about that later.
But I see that went under.
You know, that was on the down low.
But nonetheless, the mission got a little thwarted in the Middle East.
And unfortunately, it turned out not going as well as any of us had hoped.
But I believe that there was a point in time, frankly, where Barack Obama made things even worse.
You guys may recall that at the time in Syria when this gassing happened, you had Barack Obama that said a red line, and he told Bashar al-Assad, if you cross this red line, basically, I'm paraphrasing, they'll be held to pay.
Well, Bashar al-Assad crossed that red line, and he lied, and he blamed other people on that.
And then you had Russia, Russia's Vladimir Putin come in at the time.
And he started acting like he was the acting Secretary of State.
John Kerry was taking the lead.
Was taking the lead from Vladimir Putin at the time.
I remember sitting in.
I was with the American adversaries at the time.
And I remember talking about this and laughing.
Like, this is insane.
Vladimir Putin is essentially our Secretary of State.
And I think what Vladimir Putin was trying to do, thanks to Barack Obama, he was taking advantage of his naivete.
He comes in.
He was acting as, again, the acting Secretary of State because John Kerry didn't know what he was doing.
He was trying to sound all smart when he referred to ISIS as Dodge, you know, the great Poupon, Heinz, you know, married into wealth guy.
But anyway, Barack Obama had no clue what he was doing, and Vladimir Putin was playing him like a fiddle.
So Barack Obama is weak.
The Middle East found out he was weak.
Vladimir Putin realized that he was weak, which is why Vladimir Putin took parts of Ukraine back then, because he realized how weak Barack Obama was.
But also, Bashar al-Assad allowed Russia to come in, and Russia started spreading their influence, as well as Iran in the Middle East at that time.
And that's what's lingered.
Nearly one million Syrians were displaced.
So some of those Syrians, I'm sure, are so happy that they're going to be able to go back to their homes if they exist.
I mean, these people have been living in tents.
They've seen their towns, they're, you know, hollowed out.
You can thank Barack Obama and their foreign policy as well as Joe Biden for this.
And so Russia gained a stronghold there.
You had Iran, all of these people becoming stronger under Barack Obama's leadership.
You know, later on, Vladimir Putin tried to test Trump, and he had like 200 mercenaries or something, I believe, in Syria, and Trump smoked them.
And then Putin was like, oh my goodness, I can't mess with this fool.
But a lot of the turmoil that you see in the Middle East, including the hundreds of thousands of people that were displaced and murdered.
At the hands of Bashar al-Assad, you can thank Barack Obama for not to mention he was weak when it came to Iran, just like Joe Biden has been weak when it comes to Iran.
And then all of a sudden, you have Joe Biden trying to take credit for what's happening with the fall of Bashar al-Assad when the truth of the matter is, you can thank Israel for the fall of Bashar al-Assad, but even Netanyahu issues us a word of caution, which I'll play after the break, because if it were...
If it were not for Israel, if it were not for Netanyahu kicking Hezbollah's butt, alright, in the Middle East.
Then basically Bashar al-Assad would still be in power and then you would have Russia and Iran continuing to work with Syria in order to try to build their power base.
And I think part of their power base or that struggle in the Middle East, quite frankly, was to distract the United States of America, get us bogged down in a quagmire in the Middle East while Russia could take more of Ukraine.
I mean, it's a convoluted story, but it's a great ending.
But it's not over yet.
This is of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, in video clip number one, por favor, Mr. McConnell.
He's speaking of the situation with Syria.
This is a historic day for the Middle East.
The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity, but also is fraught with significant dangers.
This collapse...
It's a direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's main supporters.
It set off a chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression.
But it also means we have to take action against possible threats.
One of them is the collapse of the Separation of Forces Agreement from 1974 between Israel and Syria.
This agreement held for 50 years.
Last night it collapsed.
The Syrian army abandoned its positions.
We gave the Israeli army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel.
This is a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.
Equally, we send a hand of peace to all those beyond our border in Syria, to the Jews, to the Kurds, to the Christians, and to the Muslims who want to live in peace with Israel.
We're going to follow events very carefully.
If we can establish neighborly relations and a peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that's our desire.
But if we do not, we'll do whatever it takes to defend the state of Israel and the border of Israel.
You know, whether you like it or not...
Israel just helped save Western civilization.
That's what their fight was for.
It's a bigger fight.
And for those of you that are unappreciative of being Americans and calling yourselves Americans, honestly, whenever I look at clips like this or listen to what's happening in the Middle East, this is where we could be as a United States.
You have Israel.
That literally has to, the only democratic nation in the Middle East that has to fight for their existence on a daily basis.
And then we have leftists in the United States that have it so good that they have to make up microaggressions and pretend like they're being attacked.
It's insane!
But it's a stark reminder of how good we have it in the United States of America, in my opinion, quite frankly, whenever we listen to and we pay attention to foreign policy.
Foreign policy, obviously, we want America to be strong and great, but also foreign policy often offers us lessons, those of us that are American citizens.
On just how good we have it, but also how dangerous the world could be.
As Netanyahu said, this is a great opportunity for those that are in that region.
But there's some realism there.
There's some realism.
Things could get better if we're being honest.
Things could get worse.
But what you're looking for in the Middle East is stability.
That's why it doesn't necessarily work.
To nation-build, per se, in the Middle East.
Because you have people that have different worldviews.
And all that Israel can do is hope that the kind of best man wins and that they offer a sense of stability.
But frankly, they'll never look like the United States of America.
They'll never look like a civilized nation like Israel.
But what we're hoping for is stability.
And sometimes that's the best you can get.
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