There's important news today that a large group of State Department officials who are responsible for dealing with Syria wrote to president Obama to urge that the USA take offensive action against the Assad regime. It's a symbolic move; there is no chance that Obama would ever move against Assad. After all, Assad's biggest allies are Russia and Iran. Both have troops in Syria. Obama would not risk upsetting either country. Obama has backed away from every potential confrontation with Russia for the last eight years. Also Obama would not confront Iran because it might renounce the nuclear hoax (excuse me, deal) that Obama reached with the mullahs last year. Since Obama wouldn't confront either country, he certainly will not take steps that might lead to casualties among the troops of those countries.
The State Department officials understand that Obama will not act, but they wrote anyway. These are not Trump supporters looking to embarrass the president. They are long time government employees who recognize that it hurts America in the region to be perceived as siding with the monster Assad. Indeed, that perception actually strengthens ISIS. No, the letter was mainly intended as a combination of exasperation at the ridiculous policy followed by Obama for years in Syria and hope that the next president can find his or her way to a policy that will actually serve American interests in the region.
The saddest thing about all this, however, is that we never should have gotten here. Five years ago, Assad started the civil war by confronting protests by Syrian citizens in Damascus. Assad's method of confrontation was to send snipers to kill random protesters from afar. There were quite a few protesters killed, but the protests did not end. Instead, they grew larger. In a panic, Assad sent his forces to carry out mass killings of the protesters, but those forces were met with armed resistance. At that point, the opposition to Assad was mainly moderate Sunni Arabs. ISIS did not yet even exist. Al Qaeda jumped in with the anti-Assad forces, but the al Qaeda group was only a small part of the battle. Obama and then secretary of state Hillary Clinton decided that the USA should stay neutral. They had just gone in to Libya to overthrow Gaddafi who was (at least at that time) a friend of the USA because he was threatening to send his troops into Benghazi to defeat the rebels there. Hillary and Obama reasoned that to do nothing would lead to up to a thousand casualties and we could not stand by while that happened. In Syria, however, it became evident almost immediately that Assad was going to commit mass slaughter of anyone who opposed him or who he suspected of opposition. In almost no time, over one hundred thousand were dead, but the USA still did nothing. As the Sunni forces realized that America and the West would not help them, they turned to the people who could get them arms for the fight, namely the Islamist terror groups. Today, the main opposition in Syria to Assad consists of ISIS, and al Nusra (which is the local variant of al Qaeda). Obama and Clinton's policy pushed an entire country into the hands of the terrorists.
The State Department officials understand that Obama will not act, but they wrote anyway. These are not Trump supporters looking to embarrass the president. They are long time government employees who recognize that it hurts America in the region to be perceived as siding with the monster Assad. Indeed, that perception actually strengthens ISIS. No, the letter was mainly intended as a combination of exasperation at the ridiculous policy followed by Obama for years in Syria and hope that the next president can find his or her way to a policy that will actually serve American interests in the region.
The saddest thing about all this, however, is that we never should have gotten here. Five years ago, Assad started the civil war by confronting protests by Syrian citizens in Damascus. Assad's method of confrontation was to send snipers to kill random protesters from afar. There were quite a few protesters killed, but the protests did not end. Instead, they grew larger. In a panic, Assad sent his forces to carry out mass killings of the protesters, but those forces were met with armed resistance. At that point, the opposition to Assad was mainly moderate Sunni Arabs. ISIS did not yet even exist. Al Qaeda jumped in with the anti-Assad forces, but the al Qaeda group was only a small part of the battle. Obama and then secretary of state Hillary Clinton decided that the USA should stay neutral. They had just gone in to Libya to overthrow Gaddafi who was (at least at that time) a friend of the USA because he was threatening to send his troops into Benghazi to defeat the rebels there. Hillary and Obama reasoned that to do nothing would lead to up to a thousand casualties and we could not stand by while that happened. In Syria, however, it became evident almost immediately that Assad was going to commit mass slaughter of anyone who opposed him or who he suspected of opposition. In almost no time, over one hundred thousand were dead, but the USA still did nothing. As the Sunni forces realized that America and the West would not help them, they turned to the people who could get them arms for the fight, namely the Islamist terror groups. Today, the main opposition in Syria to Assad consists of ISIS, and al Nusra (which is the local variant of al Qaeda). Obama and Clinton's policy pushed an entire country into the hands of the terrorists.
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