Obama Wants Expulsions to Sabotage Trump Hopes for Good Relations With Russia

The new sanctions on Russia were motivated by the determination of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from reestablishing good relations with Moscow while offering yet no hard public evidence to justify their actions, analysts told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — "Hillary Clinton and her fellow neoconservatives want to make it as difficult as possible for Trump to reverse her bellicose policies toward Russia and other ‘enemies’," professor of neuroscience and political commentator John Walsh told Sputnik on Thursday.

Obama also wanted to embarrass Trump and distract attention from the fiascoes of his own foreign policy record, Walsh explained.

"Obama's foreign policy is now seen as a disaster which has caused great suffering for tens of millions in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere. This policy evokes the aversion of the entire world, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared," he said.

Walsh noted that Obama’s latest crackdown on Russia had no justification in solid evidence.

WikiLeaks head Julian Assange and former UK ambassador Craig Murray had both testified that revelations of corruption that were so embarrassing to Clinton came from leaks in her own supporting organizations, not from Russia, Walsh recalled.

Obama’s latest actions were not justified because there was no evidence that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or its chairman John Podesta were hacked, Walsh continued.

"The material that came out was leaked as Julian Assange, Craig Murray and others assure us. The word of both Assange and Murray has proven good as gold in the past," Walsh pointed out.

Obama’s measures would prove damaging to US national security because they prevented intelligence cooperation with Russia and would seriously damage the international fight against terrorism and specifically the struggle against the Islamic State, he said.

Center for Family and Human Rights President Austin Ruse agreed that Obama had presented no evidence Russia had hacked the US election.

"This action is entirely unjustified and has the feel of a presidency in its death throes," he said. "It seems an act of desperation all out of proportion to what we have been told."

Obama’s actions would not derail Trump’s push for better relations with Russia, Ruse predicted.

"I am confident this will not harm our prospects with Russia going forward as we know that Trump has a much more realistic view of the potential our relationship with Russian holds, especially in our common fight against jihadist terror," Ruse stated.

Obama’s action would further diminish his in standing with international leaders, Ruse also said.

"It also appears that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has much greater respect for Trump than he does for Obama. It is awfully clear that no foreign leaders have much respect for our hapless feckless leader," he added.

The Center for Family and Human Rights is a UN accredited non-governmental organization that has worked closely with numerous of UN delegations over the past 20 years.