In a national security speech in Iowa [last fall], Rubio promised to crack down on Russian President Vladimir Putin in a way that the current administration has failed to do. The policies he swore to enact included “lethal assistance” to Ukraine to dislodge the Russian troops that have camped out in the eastern half of the country and new sanctions on the country’s leaders beyond what President Obama imposed after Russia occupied the Crimea Peninsula early last year. He took the de rigueur shots at the president for having failed “the test of leadership” and promised that once elected, he would pass that test.
The remarks positioned Rubio in the sweet spot of the Republican field with regard to foreign policy, putting him somewhere between the overblown jingoism of Carly Fiorina and the goofy “I’ll make Putin love me and then everything will be fine” bluster of Donald Trump. Truthfully, he’s not promising much more than Obama as far as Russia is concerned. More sanctions, diplomatic isolation of Putin, and aid to Ukraine? The U.S. has been moving on all those fronts for years now. The obvious question is what would be so different under President Rubio?
With regard to Syria, this is where the junior Senator from Florida runs into the same vagueness as every other neocon. Pressed by host Martha MacCallum on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” about whether any military action by the United States now means we’re at war with Russia, Rubio responded with talk of setting up a “safe zone” in Syria. This zone could be used as a sort of base for moderate rebel groups opposed to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, from which they could continue to wage war. Considering that Rubio had just a minute before stated that Russia is bombing these groups in order to eliminate them and prop up Assad, it’s hard to see how putting these rebels under official U.S. protection would not put our forces in direct conflict with the Russian military.
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