Interviewer: You said you're confident there were no good options for the US to be able to stop what's
going on in Syria without getting our troops involved in a quagmire.
Obama: Right.
Interviewer: When you see images from Syria do you ever doubt yourself or second guess the decisions
you made?
Obama: In Syria there is not a scenario in which absent us deploying large numbers of troops
we can stop a civil war in which both sides are deeply dug in.
There have been critics of mine that have suggested, "well you know if early enough
you had provided sufficient support to a moderate opposition they might have been able to overthrow
the murderous Assad regime."
The problem with that as we've seen, is that, that Assad regime is supported by Russia.
It's supported by Iran.
Because they have not threatened us directly we would've been violating international law
as it's understood to just go in there and invade.
And unless we were willing to sustain a large presence there and escalate if and when Russia
or Iran got involved then we were gonna be in a situation where at some point the situation
would collapse, except, we would have a bunch of folks on the ground and we'd be overextended.
In addition, keep in mind that we still have a situation in Iraq in which we had to support
a fragile government.
We still had a situation in Afghanistan which depsite the incredible sacrifices that we've
made we've given them opportunity to succeed but they're not out of the woods yet.
We've spent well over one trillion dollars.
There is a long tail in terms of cost of those that come home with wounds seen and unseen.
So it's in these situations where you have to make judgements about what is best for
national security interests of the United States.
Even though what you see is heart breaking.
That's one of the most difficult decisions you make as President but historically if
you look at what happens to great nations more often than not is that they end up having
problems because they are overextended, don't have a clear sense of what is their core interest,
and what is things that they'd like to help.
The key in Syria at this point is unless we can get the parties involved to recognize
that they are just burning their country to the ground and get it on a diplomatic and
political track, frankly there's gonna be a limit to what we can do.
We will try to mitigate the pain and suffering that those folks are undergoing.
Part of the reason why are approach to refugees, for example, has to be open-hearted.
Although also hard-headed to protect our homeland.
But at the end of the day, there are gonna be challenges around the world that happen
that don't directly touch on our security where we need to help.
We need to help lead.
But just sending in more troops isn't going to be the answer.