White House: ‘Offensive’ to say US not doing enough in Aleppo

by Jordan Fabian - 12/14/16 1:45 PM ET

The White House on Wednesday lashed out at critics who say it hasn’t done enough to prevent the fall of Aleppo, which could worsen a massive humanitarian crisis in Syria.

“It’s offensive to somehow suggest that the United States government and the world is not doing anything,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

{mosads}Earnest vigorously defended the administration’s diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the fighting, rather than use U.S. military force, and he bristled at the suggestion the administration is declining to take additional actions.

“No one has put forward an alternative suggestion for what we should now be doing,” he said.

Earnest appeared to grow irritated by a flurry of questions about the Obama administration’s Syria policy, which has failed to end widespread violence in the country’s nearly six-year civil war.

The comments came as the Syrian government was on the cusp of taking the last rebel-controlled areas of Aleppo, where pro-regime forces were slaughtering civilians. The United Nations estimates 50,000 people are trapped in rebel-held areas of the city.

Earnest blasted the “depraved tactics” used by Syrian leader Bashar Assad and rapped the Kremlin’s knuckles for supporting them.

“I think the Assad regime has demonstrated that they’ve crossed all the lines in pursuit of their goals,” he said, citing “starving innocent civilians into submission” and “bombing hospitals and playgrounds.”

“What kind of a sick mind comes up with a strategy like that?” he continued. “And what kind of civilized country is going to support those tactics? But that’s what Russia has done.”

But the Obama administration’s failure to stem the violence has led some critics to say it could leave a black mark on the president’s legacy, just like President Bill Clinton was slammed for his decision not to intervene to stop the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s.

Earnest said the U.S. would continue to pursue diplomatic steps to stop the fighting through the U.N. Security Council, and he touted the administration’s efforts to provide billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Syrians.

“Even our harshest critics cannot articulate some sort of alternative,” he said. “I suspect if there actually were a military solution to this problem, the commander in chief wouldn’t hesitate to implement it.”

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