Please pass the salt, my dear Hitler.
As Secretary of State John Kerry ramped up his rhetoric equatingꩲ Bashar al-Assad with the Nazi dictator, an embarrassing photo recalls how Kerry once courted him.
Kerry and his wife, Teresa, dined with the Syrian leader and his wife, Asma, at a Syrian restaurant in February 2009, when the Obama administration was trying im𒉰prove then-frosty relations with Damascus.
Kerry, as a senior senator from Massachusetts, headed a US delegation seeki𝐆ng wa🤡ys to improve chances for peace in the Mideast, and visited Assad twice more in 2010.
The convivial scene contrasted with Kerry’s bristling tone after the United States charged Assad with orchestrating a poison-gas attack that killed 1,429 Syr🐎ians , including 426♋ children, last month.
Yesterday, Kerry told House Democrats that the world faces a “Munich moment” with a “two-bit dictator.” He was alluding to the 1938 Munich pact 🤪in which Britain avoided a military confrontation with Nazi Germany and allowed Adolf Hitler to swallow up then-Czechoslovakia. Critics noted that during the administration of George W. Bush — which took a hardline with Assad — Kerry and then-Sens. Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel welcomed improved ties with Assad, who was considered a “reformer.”
On Sunday, Kerry made the comparison more direct: “Bashar al-Assad now joins Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein who have used thes🌊e weapons in time of war,” he said.