Memo justifying half a million deaths: Amanpour's husband James Rubin making the case for gutting Syria
"Overthrowing Assad would be nothing less than “transformative,” "
"Iran would be strategically isolated ... The resulting regime in Syria will see the United States as a friend, not an enemy. ... For Israel, the rationale for a bolt from the blue attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be eased ... "
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/13/the-memo-that-helped-kill-a-half-million-people-in-syria/And a much more thoughtful article by Glass in Harper's, tho he does try to absolve the best and brightest in the Obama czarship:
"In fact, there was no strategy. "
" ... they wanted to do the right thing. In Rhodes’s case, anything. “Even though I had misgivings about our Syria policy,” he wrote, “I was glad we were doing something.” "
"on the assumption that “this guy [Assad] is toast"
"Lavrov also warned Clinton that removing Assad would lead to chaos and jihadism. “They had a fair point in saying we didn’t have a plan for Syria if we got rid of Assad,” Gordon admitted. “And, to be honest, I don’t think we were ever in a position to convincingly say, ‘No, no, no, if Assad falls, it won’t be like Iraq or Afghanistan.’ ” "
"General Dempsey urged Obama to act: “Up to this point, he had argued that Syria was a slippery slope where there was little chance of success. Now he said that something needed to be done even if we didn’t know what would happen after we took action.” "
"There was no policy. They were making it up as they went along."
" ‘Tell me how this ends.’ No one could answer with confidence that we would not wind up on a slippery slope, getting in deeper and deeper than we intended. "
"The compromise between direct military involvement and staying out was the route taken by many presidents before Obama: a covert operation to raise an insurgent army and train it in nearby countries; provide weapons, sustenance, and communications; and oversee the military campaign. It was high-risk for the locals and casualty-free for the Americans."
" It was a recipe for failure as much as for carnage."
confirms Hersh's ratline report: "A major source of weapons for the Syrian opposition was Libya ... supply chain became public after the September 11 murder of US ambassador Christopher Stevens in the Benghazi compound ... "
" the program was benefiting religious fanatics more than any moderate, secular oppositionists."
"A state of lunacy was reached when the respective insurgent bands of the CIA’s covert and the Defense Department’s overt programs turned their American weapons on each other. "
“No one was sure it would work, but we had to do something.”
"The result of US meddling in Syria was failure on all counts ... Syrian conspiracy theorists claim the US goal was to destroy Syria, as it did Iraq, to protect Israel. Only if that were true could the United States be said to have achieved any objective."
"Trump canceled Obama’s Title 50 program that armed Syrian oppositionists in July 2017."
" I think the original sin is getting on board for supporting an armed opposition that had little prospect of actually bringing about a political transition in a more stable Syria."
“Once we topple the regime, are the stable moderates going to come to power and govern Syria? I don’t think so. And then you’ve just got a different form of chaos that we’re responsible for.”
"Obama’s foreign policy team had advanced degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown, as well as Rhodes scholarships, and better credentials than most Fortune 500 boards, university faculties, and think tanks. They were “the best and the brightest” of our time" ... they go on to think tanks and academe to await the call to serve again."
Read the whole thing:
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/02/american-involvement-in-syria/I wouldn't trust those "best and brightest" to organize a beer bash in a brewery.
sidd