President Obama's justification for not intervening in the Syrian civil war to help bring about a resolution is "a little disingenuous," CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward said Wednesday.
CNN host Brooke Baldwin played a clip from a network special titled "The Legacy of Barack Obama" in which the president explained his reasoning for not getting more involved in Syria.
"I think it is the smartest decision from a menu of bad options that were available to us," Obama said. "But, do I believe that it would have been a profound mistake for us to wade in and to currently have 100,000 troops or 50,000 troops inside of Syria right now? Do I think the situation would be better for us? I do not believe so."
Baldwin then asked Ward how the Syrian people felt about Obama's decision to not put troops on the ground.
"Well, I think they feel deeply disappointed," Ward responded.
She explained that due to the moral standard set in Libya, where the U.S. used military force in 2011 to in part stop deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi from massacring how own people, made the Syrian people feel that the West would at some point step in and make sure they were not killed by their own leader, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"They also felt that they were misled," Ward said. "Part of the reason they went out and marched into a hail of bullets carrying signs calling for freedom was because they saw what had happened in Libya and the moral precedent that had been established there by the U.S. And they genuinely believed that the West would come in some capacity, if not to actively support them then certainly to prevent the basically extermination that we have seen take place across the country."
She then called Obama's reasoning for not acting "a little disingenuous" because he made the situation in Syria seem very cut and dry, with only two extreme options to choose from–military invasion or total inaction.
"And I think what's a little bit disingenuous about President Obama's statement that you just heard to Fareed [Zakaria] there is that essentially he's presenting this as it was either a choice to do nothing, which was the choice the U.S. went with, or it was a choice to send in 100,000 troops and have a full on military intervention, a full-on invasion, if you like," she said.
Ward said that the Syrian people see this sort of characterization of the conflict as a "false representation" of available options.
"To people on the ground inside Syria, that feels like a false representation," she said. "They believe very firmly that the international community could have done more, that a coalition could have been established. We've heard from the Saudis and from the Turks and the Qataris that they were willing to take on the onus of a ground presence if only they had at least the support of the U.S."
She ended by pointing out that hindsight is always 20/20.
"As always with these situations, hindsight is 20/20," she said."Obviously, in the fog of war it's never easy to make these decisions, but certainly on the ground, deep, deep disappointment and bitterness about the U.S.'s lack of involvement, broke."