and security cooperation and critically by stepping up our efforts to counter them in cyberspace. we know we will not eradicate this threat until we defeat the ideology that lies behind it. our talks later i m sure we ll discuss other topics. on defense and security cooperation, we are as the bullwork of our collective defense, and today we ve reaffirmed our unshakeable commitment to this alliance. mr. president, i think you confirmed that you were 100% behind nato, but we re also discussing the importance of nato continuing to insure it is as equipped to fight terrorism and cyber warfare as it is to fight more conventional forms of war. i ve agreed to continue my efforts to encourage my fellow european leaders to deliver on their commitments to spend 2% of their gdp on defense so is that the burden is more fairly shared.
good evening, gentlemen. thank you. you first. president barack obama did an interview with npr, it will air tomorrow morning. he talks about the russian hacking and how it affected the election. here s part of what he says. he says there s no doubt that it contributed to an atmosphere in which the only focus for weeks at a time, months at a time were hillary s e-mails. i have no doubt it had impact based on the coverage. the irony of all this, of course, for most of my presidency, there s been a pretty sizable wing of the republican party that is consistently criticized me for not being tough enough on russia, a big chunk of the republican party which prides itself during the reagan era and for decades that followed is being the bullwork against russian influence is now suddenly embracing him. what do you think?
who said it s a mistake not to cooperate with the syrian government. our position completely different. we couldn t be more opposed about how we got to this position, why syria is such a mess, what prompted the refugee crisis. what should be done about it. on every single level, thomas, that disagreement was out there for the public to see today. i think it made for a dramatic start to the day and really setting up this meeting between the president and vladimir putin. remember, these two have not sat down face to face for two years, it is a frosty relationship. white house officials like to say it s a business-like relationship. when you see them together and hear what they had to say today, you realize how far apart they are. look at how they see assad. mr. putin said he s a bullwork against isis, he is what s standing between even a wider expansion of terror in that region. mr. obama says that he has to
thriving no? there are plenty of issues you have to look at. as there been rule breaking? yes. have cultures been completely transformed? no. has sufficient criminal responsibility for criminal acts been apportioned? probably not. on the other hand institutions have much larger capital buffers than they did before. from the point of main street the risk 068 some sort of meltdown that takes main street down as well like we saw in 2008. i think most experts would say those risks have been substantially reduced. but is there too much bucket shop activity? yes are people doing irresponsible things? yes, i wrote a column this week about debt reduction for ukraine. here they are, the bullwork of a fight against russian aggression
people, it would have been an iraqi problem. instead, he was taken out by us, and now in the eyes of much of the middle east and certainly in the eyes of many of the iraqis, it is our problem. is this current crisis and all of the bloodshed of the last 11 years, is that the reason behind the bush 41 administration, the first one, not pushing on to baghdad during the first gulf war? i mean, did you foresee this? that was one of the reasons. in fact, president bush and brent scowcroft wrote in the book a world transformed, that they were fearful that if we went in there and took him out in 91, that we would have ended up occupying it just as we have been occupying it for the last 11 years. and it would not have been in our interests to do so. we would have ended up with a mess that we are in. that was one of the reasons we did not go to baghdad. another reason we didn t go to baghdad is we wanted to have iraq remain as a bullwork against iranian aggressiveness. and in this op-ed