Free Republic

“We’re certainly not going to coordinate with a brutal dictator who’s massacred so many of his own citizens,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Tuesday. “That’s just an absurd proposition. That’s certainly not going to happen.” She was talking about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “And—look,” Harf continued. “There’s nothing ideological about standing up and saying Bashar al-Assad has no place in the future of Syria. And we are not going to partner with a brutal dictator like that to defeat a terrorist organization.” …

U.S. President Barack Obama is considering meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad this summer, a United Arab Emirates-based newspaper reported yesterday. The Al Khaleej daily based its report on Arab diplomatic sources in Cairo. They told the paper the United States was weighing holding the meeting, the first of its kind in nine years, as a measure to advance the Middle East peace process. Advertisement According to the report, the Obama administration is contemplating the move in the wake of a number of recent meetings between senior American and Syrian officials.