Krauthammer on Putin's Syria role: 'Obama has been played'

Charles Krauthammer told viewers Thursday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that Russian president Vladimir Putin's sudden anointment as a diplomatic leader in the Syrian crisis is the result of "epically incompetent foreign policy" and that President Obama has "been played" by the Russian president.

"These are the fruits of a completely incompetent, epically incompetent foreign policy diplomacy by Obama," Krauthammer said.

"Here is the president of the great democracy on Earth, being lectured - insultingly, really - in an American newspaper about human rights, about international law, about the protection of the elderly and children in wartime. I mean, the chutzpah of writing that, by a KGB thug, whose last adventure in the world was to invade Georgia, detach two of its provinces, and declare them independent.

"And who, for the last decade, has been supplying Assad - whom we are essentially calling a war criminal - with huge amounts of weaponry, including the elements of poison gas. I mean, this - what we're seeing here is Putin so confident of himself, after Obama had to acquiesce to this face-saving negotiation, that he could actually engage in this. It's an index of how, sort of, Obama has been played and continues to be, right now, in Geneva."