Former Ambassador Wolfowitz Says Putin is a ‘Bully’

During an interview on FOX Business Network’s Cavuto: Coast to Coast, Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy secretary of defense, commented on the Syrian refugee crisis and called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bully.”

“I think he [Putin] loves it every time we declare a red line and we retreat from it, whether it’s on Ukraine or whether it’s on Syrian chemical weapons or whether it’s on five or six different negotiating positions with Iran,” Wolfowitz said. “He senses weakness. This is a man, understand he’s a bully and what he thinks of is always in terms of who’s the stronger and who’s the weaker.”

Wolfowitz also had a few thoughts regarding the escalating Syrian refugee crisis.

“One of the tragedies in all of this is that the more people you take, the more come. There’s a powerful magnet effect underway now, not just from Syria, but from all over the world as people sense this may be an opportunity, and it may be a vanishing opportunity to get into Europe and maybe eventually into the United States.”

Wolfowitz stressed the importance of security when allowing refugees into the nation.

“We definitely have to balance our humanitarian impulses with the need for security, and we have to try to do as good a job as possible,” he said. “There’s no question that that’s going to be a hole.”

He added: “Understandably we want as little as possible to do with the Middle East,” Wolfowitz said. “But as Trotsky said, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. This is just one more illustration of the fact that we may not be interested in the Middle East but the Middle East is interested in us and I think we have a huge stake which we’ve not done a good job – particularly not this administration- in achieving stability in that turbulent part of the world.”