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Air strikes in northern Syria destroyed a Doctors Without Borders hospital on Monday, in a region patrolled by Russian and Syrian government warplanes.
The strikes only strengthened doubts about the ceasefire in the region, recently brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
U.S. Senator John McCain denounced the deal at a security conference in Munich earlier this week.
“Mr. Putin is not interested in being our partner,” Senator McCain said. “He wants to shore up the Assad regime; he wants to reestablish Russia as a major power in the Middle East; he wants to use Syria as a live fire exercise for Russia’s modernizing military.”
Robert Ford served as U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014. He watched the conflict evolve from a protest against President Bashar al-Assad to the multi-front conflagration of today. Ambassador Ford discusses the current state of the conflict, and whether the ceasefire might hold.
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