Sources: Obama Seeks New Syria Strategy Review To Deal With Isis, Assad
Source: CNN
By Elise Labott, Global Affairs Correspondent
November 12, 2014 -- Updated 2338 GMT (0738 HKT)
Washington (CNN) -- President Obama has asked his national security team for another review of the U.S. policy toward Syria after realizing that ISIS may not be defeated without a political transition in Syria and the removal of President Bashar al Assad, senior US officials and diplomats tell CNN.
The review is a tacit admission that the initial strategy of trying to confront ISIS first in Iraq and then take them on in Syria, without also focusing on the removal of Assad, was a miscalculation.
In just the past week, the White House has convened four meetings of the president's national security team, one of which was chaired by President Obama and others which were attended by principals like the Secretary of State. These meetings, in the words of one senior official, were "driven to a large degree how our Syria strategy fits into our ISIS strategy.
"The President has asked us to look again at how this fits together," one senior official said. "The long running Syria problem is now compounded by the reality that to genuinely defeat ISIL, we need not only a defeat in Iraq but a defeat in Syria." The U.S. government refers to ISIS as ISIL.
Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/12/politics/obama-syria-strategy-review/
Better check your supply of 'war paint' kiddies...
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Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)quadrature
(2,049 posts)we have that now.
while we are at it,
what other countries should we
try to destabilize?
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)Fucking stupidity.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I know the president's not a stupid man, but I wonder why he thinks the rest of us are?
red dog 1
(27,817 posts)Assad's removal will not be easy; unless, (by some miracle), Obama gets help from Putin.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Russia has no intention of going fishing in the murky waters created by America's ever-expanding “empire of chaos,”
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/10/putin-to-western-elites-play-time-is.html
red dog 1
(27,817 posts)ever-expanding 'empire of chaos', and has no interest in building a new empire of her own (this is unnecessary;Russia's challenges lie in developing her already vast territory)"
The quote you cite is from a Russian blogger called "chipstone", who "summarized" the speech given by Putin a few days ago at the Valdai Conference in Sochi.
If, as Putin says, Russia "has no interest in building a new empire of her own", then why has he been sending military convoys of troops and artillery into eastern Ukraine for the past few months?
In my opinion, Vladimir Putin is the single most dangerous man in the world today.
He is an egocentric, homophobic, psychopathic bully, who is now "taunting" the West with his fleet off the coast of Australia, and his troops & artillery massed inside the border of eastern Ukraine.
He is very likely personally responsible for the shooting down of a passenger plane with 298 innocent civilians aboard, because his "advisors" to the Ukrainian rebels thought it was a Ukrainian military plane.
The speech from which you quote is just words..nothing but hollow words.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)...with the same name. Here's his blog: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/
He lives on a boat in Boston harbor and spends a lot of time in Russia.
He's a favorite of the doom and gloom crowd.
Your last paragraph is a nasty bit of nativism. Reminds me of the "love it or leave it" crowd in the '60s.
red dog 1
(27,817 posts)and I apologize to the Dimitry Orlov who plays hockey for the Washington Capitals.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)There's no way Putin will ally with us against Assad.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)And no, Russia will not help us overthrow the Syrian government. Sorry.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)I don't think that overthrowing Assad will help anything in the ME. In fact, I think that there would be more chaos, similar to what happened when we overthrough Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.
I understand why some want Assad gone, but I think that they're making a big mistake.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)But at those dreamers...
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)Why don't you try to fix what is broken in this country? Haven't we caused enough damage to the people of Syria already? Enough with the bogus Free Syria Army. It was always a CIA covert action, nothing more. It failed, move on.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)The article has an unexamined premise:
"ISIS may not be defeated without a political transition in Syria and the removal of President Bashar al Assad, senior US officials and diplomats tell CNN.
The review is a tacit admission that the initial strategy of trying to confront ISIS first in Iraq and then take them on in Syria, without also focusing on the removal of Assad, was a miscalculation."
Somebody has a bad case of the hots for overthowing Assad, and I hope it's Elise Labott.
We know that the Syrian army and its allies are the only force in Syria capable of defeating ISIS. They are the boots on the ground there. What is supposed to replace them, the mythical moderate rebels? How is overthrowing Assad going to defeat ISIS? Pray tell.
Assad is not a nice fellow, but the Syrian regime still has a lot of support inside Syria. We should give up these delusions about overthrowing the Syrian government--hasn't happened so far, has it?--and especially the bizarre notion that destroying the Syrian state would somehow hurt ISIS.
It is not our right to overthrow the governments of sovereign nations. Especially without UN authorization, and that ain't gonna happen. If this is the administration going back to the drawing board, we're pretty well fucked.
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)...yes, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel. Our middle eastern "allies" just want us to do the dirty work, and shed American blood to accomplish their goals. Erdogan of Turkey and the Saudi's despise him because he's an Alawite, and they hate his socialist/secularist government. The Israeli's hate him because...well he's their enemy and they would just as soon have the US replace him with either a compliant military dictatorship (ala Egypt) or a completely broken state such as Iraq. Either way something that is of no danger to them and will keep the local radicals under control.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)That's what I'm worried about.
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)Our erstwhile allies are lobbying like hell to get us to move forward on this, regardless of the cost to the US. And the Israelis and Saudis have a lot of influence in both the White House and Congress.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)
mallard
(569 posts)Assad wanted to have a chance for something like clemency by cooperating against ISIS.
Miscalculating the current miscalculation. They seem to be suggesting it's now time for a dedicated bombing campaign against the Syrian government. That would have to be a very serious effort in order to avoid retaliation.
Latest neocon heads up. We'll be better off fighting ISIS if Assad is somehow removed first. No explanation offered.
Why not go 'ahead' and let them fight each other, or even cooperate - with ISIS!!? - on the priority, which is still getting Assad apparently, as that was the great mission before ISIS even existed.
The enemy of the enemy is still the enemy - no matter what.
Where would they be today without all our help? (A peaceful area with no significant militancy)
Your logic is dizzying!
I guess Bush's interference with Iraq worked so well, that Obama thought doing the same to Syria would work just as well. American foreign policy at it's finest. It seems obvious, to me anyway, that these adventures have had nothing to do with creating stability in the middle east, or getting rid of weapons of mass destruction, or avenging 911, or anything of a humanitarian nature; can there be any doubts after a million people at least have died at our hands? Nope, it's not about any of that stuff. Of course there's not much dialogue about what it really is about, but that usually involves conspiracy theories of some kind, like wars for oil, and our strategic allies in the middle east.. The media just doesn't ask the politically difficult questions.
nilesobek
(1,423 posts)Hard to believe this is the best thing to come out of their strategy meetings. Might just be a smokescreen, I mean the strategy meetings, they already know what they want.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Endgame? IMO, they want to reduce the cities, have the dams fail and reduce the population by 60%
We should stay away.
daleo
(21,317 posts)It must seem like an easy war to win, like taking out Gaddafi or Saddam. But we all know how those tempting easy wins run through the generals' fingers like sand, to be replaced with chaos and extremism.