I’m not talking about an individual’s credibility. I’m talking about the US government’s credibility. And I didn’t say anything about Syria, although that would have been a mistake as well. I said at the time when Clinton attacked Serbia it was an in your face move against Russia that would come back to haunt us. Russia a long history of backing the Serbs. They went to war on their behalf in WWI. At the time it was a pro-Western Yeltsin, not Putin in charge, and Russian public opinion was very pro-American. Clinton’s was against Serbia was a big part of the change that brought Putin to power.
When I said “unfortunately” we have no credibility I do mean it. I wish we did.
As for Putin, he’s a thug and a nationalist. Trying to get Ukraine into NATO is a mistake and a provocation. How would we react in Mexico signed a military treaty with China or Russia and allowed them to station their forces there?
Depends on what we did to make Mexico fear and mistrust us.
It’s true that the UN did not agree to NATO’s bombing of Serbia, but that does not mean it was against international law. America has a veto in the UN so if the UN wanted to condemn NATO’s action, we would just veto it. NATO’s attack on Libya was authorized by the UN.
Ukraine wasn't going into NATO before all this started.