Presidents have more latitude in foreign affairs than in domestic policy, and the trend over the past two administrations has been for presidents to be more hawkish than their campaign pledges led voters to expect. George W. Bush promised a “humble foreign policy.” Instead, he gave us the Iraq War. Barack Obama was elected in part to end Bush’s wars. But he too pursued regime change, with Pyrrhic success in Libya and abortively in Syria.
CIA-backed Islamic rebels are fighting against Pentagon-backed Kurish rebels in Syria.
Buzzfeed notes:
Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S. government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another arm of the U.S. government.
The infighting between American proxies is the latest setback for the Obama administration’s Syria policy and lays bare its contradictions as violence in the country gets worse.
In light of the fact that the conflict in Syria was intentionally caused by Washington, can the Russian government trust that Washington will abide by this agreement?
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address following adoption of a joint statement by Russia and US on Syria.
ISIL terrorists in a tough battle with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) took back a major part of the town of Al-Shadadi in Hasaka province in Northeastern Syria on Monday. The town was only liberated at the weekend by Kurdish “People’s Protection Units” (YPG) and the SDF. Fars News reports: “The ISIL also seized back Village 47 from the Kurdish forces in addition to al-Shadadi town,” the Arabic-language Anab Baldi news website quoted media activist Ebrahim al-Habash as saying today.
On Monday, the US and Russia announced that an agreement on a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria had been reached.
The deal applies only to groups not deemed to be “terrorists” and that determination will supposedly be made by Washington and Moscow with the proper deference to UN designations.