Nicholas Burns: ‘Misleading’ To Say Russians Can Be Pushed from Syria ‘Easily’

EXCERPT:

BURNS: "It was the right decision for President Trump to launch the cruise missile attacks because of the use of sarin gas. Frankly, they ought to be sending the message, they may be, that any repeated use by the Assad regime of chemical weapons will be met with another attack by the United States. But the broad statements, particularly from Secretary Tillerson in Italy and also from Sean Spicer, they are just impossible to implement in this environment. The key thing, I think, is this visit by Tillerson to Moscow. They have to decide how hard to push the Russians towards an international  negotiation. It's going to be extraordinarily difficult to do because the Russians are strong in Syria. And the talk by the administration that they can somehow push the Russians easily toward negotiations, I think is misleading. The Russians have a base there. They have Iran and Hezbollah working with them. They are in a stronger position than the United States.”