Monday, October 5, 2015

Krauthammer: Obama's Syria Debacle And A Powerless U.S.

"Russia hits Assad's foes, angering U.S." Headline, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1
If it had the wit, the Obama administration would be not angered, but appropriately humiliated. President Obama has, once again, been totally outmaneuvered by Vladimir Putin.
Two days earlier at the United Nations, Obama had welcomed the return, in force, of the Russian military to the Middle East — for the first time in decades — in order to help fight the Islamic State.
The ruse was transparent from the beginning. Russia is not in Syria to fight the Islamic State. The Kremlin was sending fighter planes, air-to-air missiles and SA-22 anti-aircraft batteries. Against an Islamic State that has no air force, no planes, no helicopters?
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Russia then sent reconnaissance drones over Western Idlib and Hama, where there are no Islamic State fighters. Followed by bombing attacks on Homs and other opposition strongholds that had nothing to do with the Islamic State.
Indeed, some of these bombed fighters were U.S. trained and equipped. Asked if we didn't have an obligation to support our allies on the ground, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter bumbled that Russia's actions exposed its policy as self-contradictory.
Carter made it sound as if the Russian offense was to have perpetrated an oxymoron, rather than a provocation — and a direct challenge to what's left of the U.S. policy of supporting a moderate opposition.
The whole point of Russian intervention is to maintain Assad in power. Putin has no interest in fighting the Islamic State.
Indeed, the second round of Russian air attacks was on rival insurgents opposed to the Islamic State. The Islamic State is nothing but a pretense for Russian intervention.
And Obama fell for it.
Just three weeks ago, Obama chided Russia for its military buildup, wagging his finger that it was "doomed to failure." Yet by Monday he was publicly welcoming Russia to join the fight against the Islamic State.
Read the rest of the op-ed HERE.

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