“I personally would be advocating for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors to stop the carnage from the ground and on the air”, Clinton said Friday on CNN affiliate WHDH. “Hillary Clinton would be the first to say that when you’re sitting in the seat that I’m sitting in the Situation Room, things look a little different”, Mr. Obama said. Pentagon officials urged the Russian military on Thursday to focus its airstrikes in Syria on Islamic State fighters rather than opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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Kasich, who is running for president, also reiterated his call for the United States to be part of a regional coalition of ground troops – from Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and Jordan – to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda both in Syria and Iraq.
“If and when she’s president, then she’ll make those judgments”, he said of Clinton.
In August, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a key ally of the U.S.in its fight against the Islamic State group, said that a no-fly zone over northern Syria was urgently needed.
But Obama assumed the best from Clinton, even as she contradicted his leadership in the region.
To what degree did Hillary Clinton’s endorsement just yesterday of a no-fly zone put her in a category of embracing a half-baked answer in Syria that borders on mumbo-jumbo?
“On the no-fly zone, our position on that hasn’t changed, which is at this point that’s not something that we’re considering”, White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest told reporters on Tuesday. Obama reluctantly backed a proposal to equip opposition forces a year ago, but has used the program’s failure to suggest his initial wariness was right all along.
Kasich said the zones would provide refuge for Syrians fleeing the 4-year-old civil war that has killed a quarter million people and displaced an estimated 4 million.
Other Republican candidates have previously backed a no-fly zone, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. The White House has so far resisted the calls, saying it would be hard to enforce.
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At a news conference in New Hampshire, Kasich said he is anxious that Russia’s decision to drop bombs in Syria will exacerbate that nation’s troubles.
