Posted on 09/10/2014 6:01:58 PM PDT by mandaladon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Struggling Syrian rebels that President Barack Obama once derided as "former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth" now form a key pillar of the U.S. leader's strategy to beat back the militant insurgency known as Islamic State.
For over three years, Obama has kept the so-called moderate rebels at arm's length. While giving verbal and limited material support, he and his spokesmen often said publicly that adding more weaponry to the civil war would only make things worse.
Now Obama is taking a different tack as he sets out his strategy to defeat the Syrian-based Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate across a wide swath of Syria and Iraq.
He is offering enhanced support and training for the Syrian opposition as part of a plan that also involves U.S. air strikes on Islamic State positions in Syria.
Obama himself was the chief mover behind the shift in U.S. policy, said Syria analysts and U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"It seems to me that he has actually changed his mind. All the indications are that he was the main constraint on a more robust Syria policy all along," Andrew Tabler, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said of Obama.
Deciding to expand the American support underscores Obama's lack of good options in Syria, more than three years into a civil war that has killed nearly 200,000 people.
The White House has to find a way to destroy Islamic State without allying itself with Syrian President Bashar al Assad, whom Obama called on to leave power more than three years ago. Assad's forces are also battling the group.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
As far as the “moderates” are concerned.....
The Michigan woman who died in Syria fighting with the “moderates” about a year back was called a radical by her own parents who tried to warn the FBI about her.
The “moderates” will kill you quickly instead of torturing you to death.
As some have said it is probably a reaction from his latest poll numbers. The problem is his heart is not in it. He is a big Muslim Brotherhood supporter.
Doctor Bashir Assad of Syria, Dr. Zawahari of Al Qaeda, Engineers Bin Laden and Arafat.
He is a muslim brotherhood member.
Muslim Rage Boy!
always a crowd favorite
Iraq should have been the Germany of this century instead we "we" / our government got weak.
Now we have to either carpet bomb or recapture the lost territory, because the threat lives there.
And I will say it again........"We are at war and the president of The United States of America, is on the wrong side.
BTW, this guy is a real person. Google Shakeel Ahmad Bhat.
Yeah, I’ve run across his story on the web. He lives somewhere in India.
His photo is as much fun as the one of Giorgio Tsoukalos. If those two jokers had a penny for every time their pictures get posted...
They won't have it for too much longer though.
Islamic Rage Boy dispenses advice on This Week in Jihad:
Obama is not about doing anything but attempting, and failing, to save his lame-duck legacy.
If ANYONE still had any doubts about WHAT he is, those doubts should well and truly be removed by this. I sure hope that the Europeans don't fall for it, but I'm afraid, after what NATO did in Libya, they just might. A pox on them all, we will all end up paying for this.
The hellish vortex is just speeding up.
The CCP needs to get its freaking act together.
Seems like his 57 states have spoken and given him the go-ahead. They like Assad about as much as they liked Gaddafi.
so these rebels fights Assad and ISIS. Assad fights these rebels and ISIS. ISIS will continue to fight everyone. As with the Arab spring all this will do is create more chaos. What if these guys knock off Assad’s government? Thats one important force that won’t be fighting ISIS any longer. This isn’t about ISIS. This is him revisiting his line in the sand. As usual its about himself.
Maybe it should be his lame dick legacy...
..................
If his plan is to depend on Arab ground troops now that ISIS has population centers, a government of sorts supplying gasoline, electricity and grain to 8 million people, probably.
we should not be arming further the Syrian rebels
we need Assad and the rebels to admit to a stalemate, sign a truce, keep it, and move on to political talks
we should only use our air forces in Syria and only against ISIS
by combating ISIS, whom both the “Syrian opposition” and Assad have been fighting, our neutrality will give us some leverage to get them to admit they have a military stalemate
if we up the support to the “Syrian opposition” (heavily loaded with members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood backed by Turkey), we will see Assad ask for a receive greater support from Putin, Iran and Hezbolla, and the “Syrian” conflict will become totally Syria-Lebanon wide
we do not need expansion of the conflict in Syria
we do not need total victory for either side
we need a stalemate, end of hostilities, truce, and political talks
if WE focus ONLY in Syria on ISIS, we can help the parties in Syria reach that point
if we do more,, favoring more the rebels, the conflict will get wider and worse, and because we will not put boots on the ground and own the results of removing Assad, the “coalition” that includes some “moderates” will, if they have a “victory” (1) become dominated by Syrian Sunni Islamists and (2) we will be sorry we ever backed them
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