Obama’s $5 Billion ‘Counter-Terrorism’ Fund Has Syria in Crosshairs

'Partnership Fund' Aims Exclusively at Syria Neighbors

In his foreign policy speech at West Point Academy today, President Obama urged Congress to fund, to the tune of $5 billion, a new “counter-terrorism fund” that seems aimed squarely at the Syrian Civil War.

Obama presented the “partnership fund” as targeting terrorism in the region, and conspicuously named only neighbors of Syria as the likely recipients of such funds.

Though not getting into specifics, the generic naming of it as a “counter-terrorism” fund suggests it may be at least in part aimed at bankrolling secular Syrian rebels, as the administration was expected to announce an increase in such activities, and has couched its funding of secular rebels as trying to create an “alternative” to the al-Qaeda dominated rebellion.

Tellingly, the Syrian National Coalition followed up Obama’s speech with a statement saying they welcome the “strategic cooperation in countering the terrorism enabled by the Assad regime in Syria.”

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.