OPINION:
Why would have Russian President Vladimir Putin have wanted to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election? I contend that if Hillary Clinton had won, Mr. Obama’s failed policies would have been continued just as though Mr. Obama had had a third term.
Under the Obama/Clinton reign, Mr. Putin was allowed to invade Ukraine and threaten the Baltic states, despite being verbally warned not to do so. Syria, a close ally of Mr. Putin, invaded the city of Aleppo even though the Obama administration objected. Mr. Obama, with the cooperation of Mr. Putin, supposedly got Syria to give up its chemical weapons. But Syria showed that it still had those weapons, as it recently used sarin gas on its own people.
During his 2012 run for reelection, Mr. Obama, on a ’hot’ microphone, told Russian Prime Minister Medvedev to inform incoming President Putin that he would have more flexibility in stopping the planned anti-missile system in Eastern Europe (which Russia opposed).
Also, in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation, 20 percent of the United States’ uranium reserves were given to Russia. With Hillary Clinton’s private server, Russia, among others, could have easily hacked classified material detrimental to American interests.
In contrast, last month when Syria gassed its own people, President Trump took military action, sending Tomahawk missiles into Syria to destroy much of the stored chemical weapons. And to cripple the Islamic State, Mr. Trump sent “the mother of all bombs,” a MOAB, which destroyed a deep-underground bunker in Afghanistan and wiped out a number of Islamic State terrorists.
Mr. Putin would have preferred to deal with a weak President Hillary Clinton than a formidable President Donald Trump.
JOHN A. MALAGRIN
Baltimore
Please read our comment policy before commenting.