During the 2012 presidential campaign, President Obama ridiculed Republican Mitt Romney for asserting that Russia remains the biggest enemy of the U.S. "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back," Obama said during one debate. Four years later, Russian President Vladimir Putin has emerged as one of Obama's most frequent antagonists. Putin's decision to begin air- strikes in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad prompted the White House to announce in October that it would send special operations forces to help rebels who've waged a four-year civil war against the regime- reversing Obama's repeated insistence that he wouldn't put American boots on the ground.
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