The exact same thing has been said about Putin.
Sure. The only problem is that he's the head of a foreign state -- and people like William Kristol and the Richards Gere and Perle have no standing in criticizing him for pursuing Russia's "war on terror" as he sees fit.
If I were Putin, I'd ask the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya what they think of Abraham Lincoln's methods of dealing with our Confederate separatists.