Reporter to Obama: Has Putin ‘Outfoxed You’ with Syria Ceasefire?

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
REPORTER: "Thank you, Mr. President. Two different topics, first on Syria. Last year, when president Putin was about to enter into Syria, you said he was doing so for a position of weakness, and that he would only get himself involved in a quagmire. Now with that about to follow, it seems like president Putin is getting one of his goals, to bolster Assad and take out the rebels. Which the U.S. Is backing how do you respond to critics who say you have been up talked by Putin, and what is your plan if it does fall? Do you plan to step of military action to help the rebels in Syria, we do have said are key to taking on ISIS? Secondly, I wanted to ask you about 2016 --"
OBAMA: "This is a lot of questions. You asked me a big question -- how about I answer that one? All right. First of all, if you look back at the transcripts, what I said was that Russia has been propping up Assad this entire time. The fact that Putin finally had to send his own troops and his own aircrafts and invest this massive military operation was not a testament to great strength, it was a testament to the weakness of Assad's position. If somebody is strong, then you don't have to send in your army to prop up your ally. They have legitimacy in their country and they are able to manage it themselves, and you have good relations with them. You send in your army when the horse you are backing isn't effective. And that is exactly what has happened. 

Now, what I said was that Russia would involve itself in a quagmire. Absolutely, it will. If there's anybody who thinks that somehow the fighting ends because Russia and the regime has made some initial advances, about three quarters of the country is still under control of folks other than Assad. That is not stopping anytime soon. I say that, by the way, with no pleasure. This is not a contest between me and Putin. The question is how can we stop the suffering, stabilize the region, stop this massive out-migration of refugees, who are having such a terrible time, end the violence, stop the bombing of schools and hospitals and innocent civilians, stop creating a safe haven for ISIS, and there's nothing that has happened over the last several weeks that points to those issues being solved. That is what I mean by a quagmire. Putin may think that he is prepared to invest in a permanent occupation of Syria with Russian military. That is going to be pretty costly. That is going to be a big piece of business. If you look at the state of the Russian economy, that's probably not the best thing for Russia. What would be smarter would be for Russia to work with the United States and other parties in the international community to try and broker some sort of political transition. 

John Kerry, working with his Russian counterpart, has, on paper, said there will be a cessation of hostilities in a few days. This will test whether or not that is possible. It is hard to do, because there has been a lot of bloodshed. If Russia continues indiscriminate bombing of the sort we have been seeing, I think it is fair to say you will not see any take-out by the opposition. And yes, Russia is a major military. Obviously, a bunch of rebels are not going to be able to compete with the hardware of the second-most powerful military in the world. But that doesn't solve the problem of actually stabilizing Syria. The only way to do that is to bring about some sort of political transition. 

We will see what happens over the next several days. And we will continue to work with our partners who are focused on defeating ISIS to also see how we can work together to try and bring about a more lasting political solution than aerial bombardment of schools and hospitals. But it's hard. I'm under no illusions here that this is going to be easy. A country has been shattered. Because Assad was willing to shatter it. And has repeatedly missed opportunities to try and arrive at a political transition. And Russia has been party to that entire process. And the real question we should be asking is what is it that Russia thinks it gains if it gets a country that has been completely destroyed as an ally? It now has to perpetually spend billions of dollars to prop up. That's not that great a prize. 

Unfortunately, the problem is spillover effect. This has not distracted us from continuing to focus on ISIL. We continue to press that hard in Iraq and Syria. That will not stop. If we can get a political transition in Syria that allows us to coordinate more effectively with not just Russia but other countries in the region to focus on the folks who pose the greatest direct threat