Taking a question about reports that the Russians have been operating out of an Iranian airbase, Charles Krauthammer affirmed that Russia is doing more than attacking ISIS from its new base in Iran:
Krauthammer: Russia’s Iran Airbase Signals the Collapse of the Obama PolicyWell it is, of course, it’s hitting a lot of the moderate rebels who in Aleppo, which is the battle going on right now, and the rebels are on the defense. If they lose, which they are losing, it essentially means that Assad has won the war. It means that Putin has won the war.
But this is an astonishing development. The Iranians are fanatically nationalistic, they never allow anybody to operate out of their territory. For Russia to be operating bombers out of Iranian air bases and going over Iraqi territory that used to be under our control is a demonstration of the total bankruptcy and the collapse of the Obama policy. The whole idea of the Iran deal was a rapprochement between us and Iran. Instead it’s a rapprochement between Iran and Russia. Now that all the sanctions are gone, it’s shipping over the most advanced air defense systems, using Iranian airspace, acting as allies.
This has never happened before. The entire northern part of the Middle East is now under an Iranian–Russian condominium because this administration and its naïveté has allowed Russia and Iran to progress with no resistance and with nothing on our side. You have Hezbollah in the fight as well. This is a very powerful coalition, and the Arabs are defenseless without us and we are nowhere to be seen.