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Giuliani: Putin More of a Leader Than Obama
Monday, March 3, 2014 05:40 PM
By: Greg Richter
As the crisis in Ukraine continues to grow, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani would like to see more leadership from President Barack Obama.
Russian President Vladimir "Putin decides what he wants to do, and he does it in half a day," the former GOP presidential candidate said Monday on Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto."
Putin, Giuliani said, makes a decision and executes it quickly.
"Then everybody reacts. That's what you call a leader. President Obama, he's got to think about it. He's got to go over it again. He's got to talk to more people about it," Giuliani said.
He compared the current decision-making process in the White House to that of late summer, when Obama was trying to figure out how to handle Syria's use of chemical weapons.
As Giuliani described it: "First, we were going to do something to Syria, then [Obama] was going to act on his own, then he was going to get congressional approval. Then he wanted the U.K. U.K. said no. Then it looked like Congress was going to say no. Then he was going to go anyway. Then he decided not to do it. And finally, after five or six days of wringing his hands and thinking and thinking and thinking, he brings Putin in and makes Putin a hero."
Putin ended up giving Obama an out after Obama had said Syria's use of chemical weapons would constitute a "red line" demanding U.S. action. When Obama couldn't get support from allies or even Congress, he seemed stuck until an offhand remark by Secretary of State John Kerry about getting Syria to give up its chemical weapons was taken up by the Russians.
But indecision is no way to get Putin's attention, Giuliani told Cavuto.
"Instead of him pushing us around, we push him around. That's the only thing a bully understands," he said.
Besides, he added, we have a treaty with Ukraine from the early 1990s. The United States promised to protect Ukraine against Russia in exchange for Ukraine's giving up its nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union was dissolved.
"We have a moral obligation to protect them," Giuliani said.
