Obama: Not Bombing Syria ‘Required The Most Political Courage’Yup, being afraid to do anything that might cross Putin takes a whole lot of courage.[/sarcasm]
Barack Obama defended his decision not to bomb Syria as president in an interview published Monday, casting his controversial decision as an act that “required the most political courage.â€
Obama spoke with Jack Schlossberg last week before accepting a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award. Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson and a member of the award committee, released a transcript of their conversation in a Medium post on Monday.
Sending troops into harm’s way was “the hardest issue that I dealt with,†Obama said, adding that seeing and knowing people younger than Schlossberg, 24, “would be in a really dangerous situation, that was tough.â€
“But I actually think that the issue that required the most political courage was the decision not to bomb Syria after the chemical weapons use had been publicized and rather to negotiate them removing chemical weapons from Syria,†Obama said.