After Paris, Obama Faces Changed Reality and Russia’s Crucial Global Role

According to a White House statement issued after Barack Obama’s meeting with Russian President Putin on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Antalya, Turkey, the U.S. President welcomed “efforts by all countries in confronting the Islamic State,” particularly noting the importance of Russia’s military efforts in Syria targeting ISIS.

That’s quite a change from his remarks to ABC News, in an interview just before the Paris attacks (to be aired on Nov. 20), in which he said that Russia intervened in Syria, not to go after ISIS but “to prop up Assad.” This is the interview in which Obama also stated that ISIS had been “contained” as a result of U.S. policy, for which he was roasted by several reporters in his press conference this morning in Antalya, Turkey.

A U.S. intelligence source reports that Obama has gotten the message, however, that if ISIS is not defeated, or should it launch a savage attack on the United States on the scale of 9/11—an ISIS video released Monday threatens an attack on Washington, D.C. and other U.S. cities—then his “legacy” goes down the drain. Thus, the Obama-Putin meeting in Antalya reaffirmed what was decided at last Saturday’s meeting in Vienna, in terms of U.S.-Russian collaboration moving forward, which also gives Secretary of State John Kerry greater leeway to work with his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to work out the details of collaboration.

The new position to which the Administration has been pushed was expressed Nov. 15 on CBS-TV by recent CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell: “I do think the question of whether President Assad needs to go or whether he is part of the solution here, we need to look at it again, Clearly he’s part of the problem. But he may also be part of the solution.” He suggested an agreement where Assad stays in power for another year and fights ISIS with the Syrian army and support from the U.S.-led coalition and Russia “may give us the best result.”

Even so, as displayed in this morning’s press conference, a very defensive Obama clung to the argument that his Mideast policies and anti-terror strategy have been a shining example of U.S. “leadership,” again asserting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “is the primary root cause of this crisis.” The reporters present had little patience with his droning and overlong explanations of U.S. “successes.” Three of them questioned the results of the U.S.-led year-long coalition bombing campaign, asking if Obama hadn’t underestimated ISIS’ abilities, and pointing to his description of ISIS as a “JV team.” Referencing the slaughter in Paris, and given the reality of ISIS’ expansion in Syria and Iraq, one reporter challenged, “How is that not underestimating their capabilities? And how is that contained, quite frankly?… Why can’t we take out these bastards?”