Small Wars Journal

Obama Has Strategy for Syria, But it Faces Major Obstacles

Mon, 11/02/2015 - 6:25pm

Obama Has Strategy for Syria, But it Faces Major Obstacles

By Walter Pincus, Washington Post

It’s time to stop this constant refrain that President Obama has no strategy for Syria.

There is and always has been a strategy. From 2011 it has been to end the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, primarily through diplomatic rather than military means. Simultaneously, since 2012, the Obama strategy has been to use force to degrade and defeat the Islamic State.

The basic element of the diplomatic strategy for ending Assad’s rule, repeated in Friday’s Vienna communique, says, “This political process will be Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, and the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria.”…

Read on.