Russia’s Move Into Syria Upends U.S. Plans And Creates New Complications
By Liz Sly September 26 at 11:28 AM
ISTANBUL — Russia’s military expansion into Syria has thrown three years of U.S. policy planning about Syria into disarray, derailing calculations and assumptions about ways to resolve the country’s war that may never have worked but now almost certainly won’t.
Exactly what Russia intends with its thus far limited deployment of troops, tanks and potentially aircraft is difficult to discern, according to military analysts and U.S. officials who say they were not consulted on the Russian moves and were caught off guard by the intervention.
But it has now become clear that a policy predicated on Russia’s eventual willingness to abandon Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in favor of a transition of power away from his rule appears to have misjudged President Vladimir Putin’s commitment to his Syrian ally.
Rather, the military intervention suggests what President Obama called “a doubling down” on Russian support for Assad in ways that could decisively alter the course of the war after months of government setbacks on the battlefield.
Russian officials have portrayed the deployments as part of a new effort to fight the Islamic State, at a time when doubts are growing about the efficacy of the Obama administration’s faltering strategy. U.S. plans to train a Syrian force to battle the extremist group have collapsed in ignominy, with only five fighters to show for a $500 million program. A year-long campaign of airstrikes has had no evident impact on the Islamic State’s control over its core territories.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russias-move-into-syria-upends-us-plans/2015/09/26/6b285a06-5bba-11e5-8475-781cc9851652_story.html
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