Post by karl on Apr 4, 2017 10:19:55 GMT -7
Once again, with the change over with American Presidentual elections, comes a change in Foreign policy. So, what should we expect next on what ever agenda. For with the considerable resources placed by the Americans on mercenary fighters with the goal of over turning the Assad Syrian Goverment, now to acknowledge the fact that Mr. Assad is secure in his currant office? Or is this simply a delaying action for future regrouping of forces?
Time is not our friend, but time is our keeper of the future.
White House Makes Clear It's Not Trying to Push Assad Out
www.militarytimes.com/articles/white-house-makes-clear-its-not-trying-to-push-syrias-assad-out
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration declared Friday that it wasn't pursuing a strategy to push Syrian President Bashar Assad out of power, making clear its focus is on defeating the Islamic State group.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the U.S. approach was being driven by a new "reality" and that Assad's future had to be a decision for the Syrian people. Similar statements were made earlier by U.S. Cabinet members speaking in Ankara, London and at the United Nations.
"There is a political reality that we have to accept in terms of where we are right now," Spicer told reporters. "We had an opportunity and we need to focus on now defeating ISIS."
Hours earlier, Jim Mattis, President Donald Trump's Pentagon chief, said Washington was looking at Syria "one day at a time," indicating Assad's status wasn't the most immediate question. On Thursday, Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, said of Assad: "Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No."
Assad's grip over Syria has been at the heart of a six-year war that has killed as many as a half-million people, helped spawn a global migration crisis and led to the emergence of IS as a worldwide terror threat. All mediation efforts have failed. And with the help of Russia and Iran, Assad has crushed much of the armed opposition and regained control over most of Syria's biggest cities.
While the statements of Trump's policy, by themselves, break little from where President Barack Obama left U.S. policy upon exiting office, they differ sharply from Obama's earlier demands for Assad to leave power. Five months into Syria's civil war, Obama gave a high-profile speech saying "the time has come for President Assad to step aside."
Those calls ebbed after a Russian-backed military intervention on Assad's behalf in September 2015 and a series of devastating setbacks for Syria's Western-backed and Arab-backed opposition forces. These developments appear to represent the "reality" Spicer alluded to on multiple occasions at Friday's news briefing — but it is one Obama officials acknowledged as well.
In December 2015, then-Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a very similar message in Moscow, saying "the United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change" and promising to facilitate a peace process in which "''Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria." His efforts failed.
Presenter
Karl
Time is not our friend, but time is our keeper of the future.
White House Makes Clear It's Not Trying to Push Assad Out
www.militarytimes.com/articles/white-house-makes-clear-its-not-trying-to-push-syrias-assad-out
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration declared Friday that it wasn't pursuing a strategy to push Syrian President Bashar Assad out of power, making clear its focus is on defeating the Islamic State group.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the U.S. approach was being driven by a new "reality" and that Assad's future had to be a decision for the Syrian people. Similar statements were made earlier by U.S. Cabinet members speaking in Ankara, London and at the United Nations.
"There is a political reality that we have to accept in terms of where we are right now," Spicer told reporters. "We had an opportunity and we need to focus on now defeating ISIS."
Hours earlier, Jim Mattis, President Donald Trump's Pentagon chief, said Washington was looking at Syria "one day at a time," indicating Assad's status wasn't the most immediate question. On Thursday, Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, said of Assad: "Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No."
Assad's grip over Syria has been at the heart of a six-year war that has killed as many as a half-million people, helped spawn a global migration crisis and led to the emergence of IS as a worldwide terror threat. All mediation efforts have failed. And with the help of Russia and Iran, Assad has crushed much of the armed opposition and regained control over most of Syria's biggest cities.
While the statements of Trump's policy, by themselves, break little from where President Barack Obama left U.S. policy upon exiting office, they differ sharply from Obama's earlier demands for Assad to leave power. Five months into Syria's civil war, Obama gave a high-profile speech saying "the time has come for President Assad to step aside."
Those calls ebbed after a Russian-backed military intervention on Assad's behalf in September 2015 and a series of devastating setbacks for Syria's Western-backed and Arab-backed opposition forces. These developments appear to represent the "reality" Spicer alluded to on multiple occasions at Friday's news briefing — but it is one Obama officials acknowledged as well.
In December 2015, then-Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a very similar message in Moscow, saying "the United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change" and promising to facilitate a peace process in which "''Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria." His efforts failed.
Presenter
Karl
