John Bolton spoke last night to Greta about the Syrian situation and was asked about the New York Times saying that we would be ‘advertising our impotence’ if we just lobbed a few missiles and didn’t go for regime change by taking out Assad. But Bolton disagrees with the premise…sorta:

“Well we’re advertising the president’s impotence and I think this is important as well. People say the president has put the American credibility on the line, therefore he has to strike. He has damaged our credibility – I acknowledge that. But mostly he’s shredded his own. And it’s about time for the rest of the world to understand that Barack Obama and the United States are not the same thing. We’ve got 1200 days of this left and it’s going to be very costly. But the United States should not be put in a worse position just to help out Barack Obama’s credibility.”







When asked if we should do something militarily simply for humanitarian reasons, to end the conflict, Bolton says absolutely not:

“My answer to that is ‘no’ and here’s the hard reality. It is entirely possible that there are humanitarian tragedies all around the world that tug at our hearts. But that doesn’t mean there’s an American interest, one way the other, in resolving the conflict. We’ve got huge interests at stake in the region as a whole, in Syria because of Iran in particular. But there are conflicts where there are no white hats and no American interests. People say we’re not the world’s policeman. That’s not the issue here. The issue here is that we should not use military force in pursuit of abstractions. We are not the world’s nanny.”

There’s more. Watch the full interview below: