Krauthammer on reports of bomb on Russian airliner: ‘The Egyptians and Russians are deathly afraid’

Published December 20, 2015

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said Thursday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that “the Egyptians and the Russians are deathly afraid” of reports that a bomb brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt – and for good reason.

“Number one, they depend hugely on tourism to get their foreign exchange. Sharm el-Sheikh is one of their number one tourist destinations. The only way to get there is by airplane. You shut down the airport, it dies,” Krauthammer said. “The second [reason they’re afraid] is that the Egyptian regime is in a death struggle with radical Islam in the country… And now if they're able to bring down airplanes, the prestige of the regime in sort of winning the battle against the jihadists is really diminished.”

Krauthammer said that Russia’s reputation for being tough on jihadists may be at stake.

“[Russia has] a reputation of being utterly ruthless. You don't want to mess with Boris,” Krauthammer said. “If this turns out to be an attack on a Russian airliner, they're going to have either their deterrent is going to be diminished, or they're going to have a furious response, which could incidentally help us, cause it would be against ISIS.”

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/krauthammer-on-reports-of-bomb-on-russian-airliner-the-egyptians-and-russians-are-deathly-afraid