At UN, Barack Obama Makes Forceful Defense of Diplomacy and Rebukes Rivals

Washington: President Barack Obama came to the United Nations on Monday and made a forceful defense of diplomacy but also directly criticized Russia, China and Iran in disputes around the world and indirectly took a swipe at his Republican rivals.

At the annual General Assembly meeting of leaders, Obama hailed the international system of rules represented by the United Nations but warned that "dangerous currents risk pulling us back in a dark more disordered world."

Those dangerous currents include major powers who want to ignore international rules and impose order through force of military power, he said.

"In accordance with this logic, we should support tyrants like Bashar al-Assad who drops barrel bombs to massacre innocent civilians because the alternative is surely worse," he said in comments that were in part directed at President Vladimir Putin of Russia, whom Obama planned to meet later in the afternoon.

Obama said he was realistic, but he said realism had to take into account the brutality of the Assad regime in Syria, where war has raged for more than four years.

"Let's remember how this started," Obama said of the Syria conflict. "Assad reacted to peaceful protest by escalating repression and killing and in turn created the environment for the current strife."

Similarly, a fidelity to international rules required that the United States respond forcefully to Russia's intervention in Crimea and Ukraine. He said that the United States had few economic interests in the region and understood the long history that Russia had with Crimea and Ukraine.

Obama was the first in a line of speakers from the big powers scheduled to speak at the 70th annual session of the U.N. General Assembly, where the Syria conflict and its consequences - the spread of Islamic State jihadism and the surge of refugees into Europe - were dominant themes.

In opening the General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon struck a somber tone, asserting that: "Inequality is growing, trust is fading, and impatience with leadership can be seen and felt far and wide."