Obama: ‘We Cannot Rely On An Assad Regime That Terrorizes Its People’

I’m not at all surprised that the president indicated he wouldn’t cooperate with Assad — the notion that he might was pure fantasy and an academic debate among think tank analysts and newspaper editors,” Brian Katulis, a senior foreign policy analyst for the Obama-allied Center for American Progress, told the Huffington Post. “It seemed quite unlikely he’d go on that direction, and I’m glad President Obama reaffirmed we wouldn’t do it given the crimes Assad committed.”

But even if America doesn’t ally itself with Assad, there is the possibility that going after ISIS will end up helping him. On the surface, Obama’s plan isn’t a bad deal for the Syrian president. In exchange for the U.S. bombing his more extremist enemy, he is forced to deal with America sending weapons to his less-threatening one. Pushing back against this concern, Obama administration officials insisted this isn’t the tradeoff they’re making.

“We do not think that our efforts in Syria will provide an opening to Assad because frankly, the areas where ISIL has a stronghold in Syria would simply not accept Assad’s rule,” said a senior administration official. “These are Sunni majority areas in the eastern part of the country. We frankly believe that if ISIL degraded in these areas, the forces that are most likely to benefit are other opposition elements, particularly the legitimate Syrian opposition whom we work with.”

Article Appeared @http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/11/obama-assad_n_5801226.html

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