Betraying Syria
Syria hovered over the negotiations with Iran. Leon Panetta, who served as Obama’s head of the C.I.A. and later Secretary of Defense said that Obama was obsessed with avoiding a conflict with Iran, even if it was at the expense of ignoring Syria’s tragedy, “If you ratchet up sanctions, it could cause a war. If you start opposing their interest in Syria, well, that could start a war, too.” When the author of the article asks Rhodes about the ability of White House officials “to get comfortable with tragedy” in reference to Syria, Rhodes’ answer is startling; “Yeah, I admit very much to that reality,” he says. “There’s a numbing element to Syria in particular. But I will tell you this,” he continues. “I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there. And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we’re there — nearly a decade in Iraq.”
When the author asks Rhodes why the Obama administration is “spending so much time and energy trying to strong-arm Syrian rebels into surrendering to the dictator who murdered their families, or why it is so important for Iran to maintain its supply lines to Hezbollah.” Rhodes mumbles something about John Kerry, and then says something to the effect, “that the world of the Sunni Arabs that the American establishment built has collapsed. The buck stops with the establishment, not with Obama, who was left to clean up their mess.” This cowardly denial and the claim that Obama is absolutely blameless in the slow death of Syria, is the most jarring in the article.
The Obama administration’s claims that Syrian tyrant Assad and his cohorts should have no place in the new Syria that emerges after the negotiations rings hollow. When the author describes Rob Malley, Obama’s senior advisor on ISIS and Syria as the official “currently running negotiations that could keep the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power” the circle of deceit and the betrayal of Syria is complete. Les enfants terribles of Obama are like him; conceited, arrogant, contemptuous and proud of it.
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Hisham Melhem is a columnist and analyst for Al Arabiya News Channel in Washington, DC. Melhem has interviewed many American and international public figures, including Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, among others. He is also the correspondent for Annahar, the leading Lebanese daily. For four years he hosted “Across the Ocean,” a weekly current affairs program on U.S.-Arab relations for Al Arabiya. Follow him on Twitter: @hisham_melhem
Mark Geoffrey Kirshner 