- Washington Free Beacon - https://freebeacon.com -

Former Defense Secretary Hagel: History Will Decide If Obama Was Right On Syria

Chuck Hagel, a former secretary of defense in President Obama's administration, was quick to distance himself from the administration's handling of Syria in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, on Thursday.

Hagel refused to defend President Obama's handling of the situation in Syria. Blitzer continued pressing eventually asking, "So what should the U.S. do now?"

"Well, I think the reality is you're not going to unwind what just happened," Hagel responded. "Leave it to the historians on who was right, who was wrong, and how it came out."

Hagel followed up with his thoughts on how Syria should be handled. "Now with a new president, a new administration coming into power in 35 days we've got to figure out some ways how we the United States can play some kind of role here in trying to stop the suffering and the slaughter," said Hagel.

"You can continue with proxy wars. The Russians put people in, the Iranians, the Turks are there, the Turks are now outside of Mosul, the Turkish forces, and they're in Syria. We're in both places, Hagel continued. "You can continue that, but we've got to get this elevated to some stability, where it is going to have to include the Russians and the Iranians in the middle east. But we've also got to realize NATO is not going to fix it. It has to come from the middle east."

Hagel served as secretary of defense in the Obama administration from 2013-2015. He was previously a Republican U.S. Senator from Nebraska.