Speaking today at his year-end conference, President Obama is talking up the further escalation of US airstrikes against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria, vowing to hit ISIS “harder than ever,” though as usual offering no particulars on what he intends to do differently.
Obama’s conference mirrored a lot of his recent talks, trying to downplay the risk of terrorist attacks and urging calm while conceding that the government can’t possibly detect all of the “lone wolf plotters” who might be planning strikes.
That and ever-more-bellicose vows on the ISIS war, admitting “challenges” but insisting that just a little more escalation of the conflict will “neutralize” ISIS ultimately, a goal he continues to insist is also going to have to include the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Even though Secretary of State John Kerry just days ago insisted the US isn’t out for regime change in Syria, Obama once again painted victory as only possible if Assad is removed, saying the US would be more likely to face future terrorist attacks if they agreed to let Assad stay in power.
The (self)baffled Americans can still count on the schizoid French establishment to push forward for 'Assad must go' meme and use them as an excuse when every other pretext is exhausted. Since the French politicians are capable, the day after their citizens were massacred by ISIS commandos (or at least both sides seemed comfortable with and assumed this interpretation), to insist that Assad is the source of all evil, despite obvious contradictions, then they ought to be fully capable to play the battering ram role for whoever is in charge with keeping the American foreign policy on imperial tracks. No matter to what precipice those tracks lead.
How do the French come into this?
Because like England and the U.S. Establishment they helped cause this problem
Translation: every ISIS target Russia strikes the U.S. will claim it struck. How obvious does it have to be who is really arming, training and supporting ISIS, and who's geostrategic bidding ISIS is really doing?
Follow the oil. The oil that is leaving ISIS controlled territory, where is it going? Who's buying it?
Why are western governments and media not asking this obvious question?
So much for the contention, advanced triumphally both here and elsewhere on the American internet, that US policy was changing. Dangling Assad in front of Putin's nose keeps him bogged down in Syria. Insisting that Assad must go, but dragging the thing out as long as possible does maximum damage to Putin. Syria is the means, Ukraine is the end.
I thought this idiot was telling Russia about a month ago that bombing ISIS will only prolong the war?
Obama lies. Poor people die.