Posts
Feb 19, 2014 02:00 am | Robert W. Merry
Secretary
of State John Kerry now is blasting Vladimir Putin’s Russia for its
support of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and the breakdown in
Geneva talks aimed at finding a way of ending the killing in Syria. He
complained on Monday that Russia is providing Assad with “so many more weapons" and political support. According to the New York Times, he added, “They’re, in fact, enabling Assad to double down, which is creating an enormous problem."The Times piece that quoted Kerry’s remarks in Jakarta, Indonesia, was produced by reporters Michael R. Gordon, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, who also offered a pungent analysis of the state of play in Syria and the American predicament related to that tragically war-torn country. The piece suggests, between the lines, that the Obama administration’s diplomatic policy on Syria is essentially in tatters. It quotes an unnamed “Western official" as saying, “I’ve never seen [Obama] more frustrated—not only with the Russians but with the failure of anything his own administration has tried to do."
It tried to help broker a settlement to the three-year-old civil war, and to that end it was willing to deal with Russia, even though Russia continued to support Assad. But now Assad appears to be gaining a significant military advantage, which diminishes any possibility that his regime will enter into serious peace negotiations. So it’s natural for Kerry and his boss, the president, to condemn the Russians.
read morehttp://nationalinterest.org/commentary/americas-syria-policy-mishmash-9895
No comments:
Post a Comment