The Once and Future Syria

The editors of the Wall Street Journal aren’t happy with the Obama Administration’s apparent decision to accept the Russians’ strategy, prioritizing the defeat of DAESH over the removal of Assad in Syria:

Mr. Lavrov can still take satisfaction in the concessions he extracted from the U.S. Mr. Kerry has effectively given up the Administration’s longstanding insistence that Mr. Assad leave office, saying after a Kremlin meeting with Vladimir Putin last week that “the United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change as it is known in Syria.”

The current U.S. position is that Mr. Assad is not a fit leader for Syria, but that’s now a political opinion more than a demand. In theory the Syrian people—including its refugees—will get to decide the matter in an election, as if the Alawite Mr. Assad would honor the result if the Sunni majority won.

if that is, indeed, the position of the Obama Administration. Quite a bit of ambiguity remains.

The Joint Chiefs have reportedly affirmed what many Syria experts have warned and what the Russians have been saying all along: the choice is between Assad and DAESH or Al Qaeda. If there is to be a multi-confessional state in the territory that has been Syria, it will be controlled by the present Alawite regime.

The administration has been saying all along that to defeat DAESH somebody has to put boots on the ground. Right now that somebody is the Assad regime and the Iranians allied with it. Even though half of Americans support sending troops to fight DAESH the Obama Administration continues to oppose the idea.

Who else is there? The Saudis? It is to laugh. Not only won’t they field troops, they can’t persuade the Egyptians or the Pakistanis to do it for them. there is no one else.