Senior officials in the Obama administration continue to double down in calling the President's foreign policy a success.
Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking on Thursday ahead of a trip to Moscow to try to convince the Russians to stop taking part in the Syrian inferno, praised the nuclear deal with Iran a year after it was signed.
“As of today, one year later, a program that so many people said will not work, a program that people said is absolutely doomed to be cheated and broken and will make the world more dangerous, has in fact made the world safer, lived up to its expectations and thus far produced an ability to create a peaceful nuclear program with Iran,” Kerry told reporters.
“The world is safer today because conflict in the region is not calculated on the basis of the potential of nuclear confrontation and nuclear explosion, and because we have the ability to be able to work through some issues,” he added, referring to Iran releasing US soldiers within 24 hours of their entering Iranian waters - though they made sure to publish humiliating pictures of the captured soldiers first.
The Secretary of State will make his way to Moscow - after a stop in Paris for Bastille day - to meet with Russian President Valdimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss Russia's future actions with regard to the Syrian civil war.
With all of Kerry's talk about the success of Obama's foreign policy, the Americans have as yet been unable to convince the Russians to make Syrian President Bashar Assad stop bombing civilians, or to allow food and supplies through to a stranded and besieged population.
A senior State Department official commented on the situation in Syria, where the ceasefire negotiated and supposedly agreed upon months ago has failed to hold on the ground.
“The reality is the Syrian regime has violated every commitment it has made - or that Russia has made on its behalf - and has squandered every opportunity to build confidence with the Syrian people,” said the official, speaking anonymously, “In the meantime, the Assad regime continues to destroy its own country and people in order to cling to power.”