WORLD_ SYRIA_ US officials concede difficulty in removing Assad

US officials concede difficulty in removing Assad

June 02, 2014
The Gulf Today


WASHINGTON: Since Syrians rose up more than three years ago against longtime President Bashar Al Assad, US President Barack Obama has had a clear message: Assad must go.

Now, even as the United States seeks to increase support to moderate rebels to fight his regime, US officials privately concede Assad isn’t going anywhere soon.

The contrast between public rhetoric and private expectations reflects the Obama administration’s struggle to address the increasingly complex, messy conflict in Syria, which is pitting world powers against one another - from Moscow to Tehran and Washington.

It also points to a continuation of the administration’s policy of supporting Syria’s neighbours and providing small-scale armed assistance to moderate rebels to fight the regime, while ruling out large-scale US involvement that officials fear would lead to another Iraq or Afghanistan.

Obama said on May 28 he would work with Congress “to ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative” to Assad and to extremists who could be more dangerous for the United States than Assad himself.

But despite that support, senior US officials acknowledge in interviews the difficulty of removing Assad, who said in April the three-year war had swung decisively in his favour.

“I don’t think anybody is under the impression that you’re going to see a dramatic change in the near term in terms of the situation on the ground in Syria,” said a senior US official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Details of the new US assistance are largely unclear, but a proposed counterterrorism fund may help Syria’s neighbours such as Jordan manage the flow of weapons, refugees and extremists out of Syria, a senior US defense official said.

The US military may also train moderate rebels outside Syria, the officials said. “The types of changes and programmes that we are talking about are not intended to or likely to produce a dramatic change in immediate weeks,” the senior US administration official said.

“He may be elected to be president of Syria, but he won’t control Syria,” General Martin Dempsey, the top US military officer, said in a recent interview with Reuters and the Pentagon’s news service.

Assad’s allies portray him as confident and in control ahead of a presidential election on Tuesday that the United States dismisses as a farce with the opposition largely unrepresented and unable to participate.

Reuters


Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc . 
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị . 



conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
02062014
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC