You can't make this stuff up...
Obama seeks $500M to train, equip Syrian rebels
Quote:
With the conflicts in Syria and Iraq becoming increasingly intertwined against the same Sunni extremist group, President Barack Obama moved on Thursday to ratchet up U.S. efforts to strengthen more moderate Syrian rebels.
First he does nothing (or very little) then he does the wrong thing.
Reminds me of the Churchill quote (which is certainly applicable to this administration):
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
Obama Wants $500 Million to Train Syrian Rebels. Now What?
Obama Wants $500 Million to Train Syrian Rebels. Now What?
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The 'shock & awe' campaign plan that fizzled out
A short BBC story, by Newsnight, which in summary was a British military designed option:
Quote:
The plan was called Extract, Equip, Train... a shock and awe attack that would allow the Syrians themselves to defeat Assad....Once the Syrian force was ready, it would march on Damascus, with the cover of fighter jets from the West and Gulf allies.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28148943 and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...an-rebels.html
Have The Islamist Militants Overreached In Iraq And Syria?
Have The Islamist Militants Overreached In Iraq And Syria?
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6 Strategies for Syria and Iraq
6 Strategies for Syria and Iraq
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LANDPOWER: Russia, Syria, China, and Drones
LANDPOWER: Russia, Syria, China, and Drones
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Raqqa: From Regime Overthrow to Inter-Rebel Fighting
Raqqa: From Regime Overthrow to Inter-Rebel Fighting
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Bashir Assad: a canny, ruthless player
A short article by a Syrian diplomat who has defected. Maybe nothing new for SWC readers, but IIRC not written by a Syrian who was an insider.
Here is one passage:
Quote:
ISIS’s role in Syria fits into a plan that has worked for Assad on several occasions. When a crisis emerges, Assad pushes his opponents to spend as much time as possible in developing a response. While implementing such diplomatic stalls, he floods the crisis with distractions designed to divert attention away from Syrian government misdeeds. His favorite diversion is terrorism, because it establishes him as a necessary force to contain it. In the meantime, world events wash away international focus on the initial crisis.
Link:http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs...5hN19.facebook
US Airstrikes Helped, But Kurds From Syria Turned Tide Against Islamic State
US Airstrikes Helped, But Kurds From Syria Turned Tide Against Islamic State
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State Piracy in Syria (And Iraq)
State Piracy in Syria (And Iraq)
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Would arming Syria’s rebels have stopped the Islamic State?
A detailed WaPo article, with many links, that looks back to the early days of the Syrian Civil War 'Would arming Syria’s rebels have stopped the Islamic State?':http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...islamic-state/
It starts with:
Quote:
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton made
news this weekend by suggesting that the rise of the Islamic State might have been prevented had the Obama administration moved to more aggressively arm Syrian rebels in 2012. Variants of this narrative have been repeated so often by
so many different people in so many venues that it’s easy to forget how implausible this policy option really was.
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And ends with) Had the plan to arm Syria’s rebels been adopted back in 2012, the most likely scenario is that the war would still be raging and look much as it does today, except that the United States would be far more intimately and deeply involved. That’s a prospect that Clinton
frankly acknowledged during her interview, but that somehow didn’t make it into the headline. As catastrophic as Syria’s war has been, and as alarming as the Islamic State has become, there has never been a plausible case to be made that more U.S. arms for Syrian rebels would have meaningfully altered their path.