U.S. considers air strikes on ISIS targets in Syria, may have to co-ordinate with Assad
AFP/Getty ImagesA member of ISIS parading with a long-range missile on a street in the northern rebel-held Syrian city of Raqa.
U.S.
President Barack Obama is to consider air strikes in Syria in the
battle against jihadist terrorists who beheaded an American journalist.
Ben Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said Friday that a strategy to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) needed to deal with both sides of the border in Iraq and Syria.
“We’re not going to be restricted by borders,” he said. “If you come against Americans, we are going to come after you.”
Air strikes on the Sunni terrorists ISIS in Syria could aid President Bashar Al-Assad who has been fighting a three-year civil war that has killed at least 191,000 according to the United Nations.
Mr. Obama has called on Mr. Assad to step down, but has been leery of intervening in Syria least he gets drawn into a bigger confrontation.
However, ISIS’s beheading this week of American journalist James Foley, along with warnings that the group now poses a danger to the world, could see the U.S. launch air strikes in Syria even without the permission of Mr. Assad.
ISIS has carved out a self-styled “caliphate” that straddles the
border of Iraq and Syria and includes a population of six million
people. In creating that caliphate ISIS has attacked Sunni rebels
fighting the Assad government while leaving regime soldiers largely
untouched.
Christopher Meyer, a former British Ambassador to the United States, has advocated for the U.S., Britain and allies to stop working for the overthrow of the Assad regime, and to work with it.
“I can’t imagine the U.S. would risk their bombers and drones being shot down by Syrian fighter aircraft or ground-to-air missiles. To avoid that, U.S. strikes would need to be done in co-ordination with Assad. This in turn would require a political somersault of truly dramatic proportions,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
“In the face of [ISIS], a common enemy, the U.S. and probably the U.K. would be working with a regime we have been trying to unseat for the better part of three years.
“But the harsh truth is that events in what used to be called the Levant and Mesopotamia demand an accommodation with President Assad.”
He added, “This would be the mother of all U-turns. It would stick in the craw of many. But, as the great Victorian foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, once said, we have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.”
Some experts believe Mr. Assad has deliberately avoided targeting ISIS, allowing them to prosper so that the West would eventually be forced to choose between supporting him or letting ISIS grow stronger.
“Like many Middle Eastern dictators before him, Assad hopes the West will accept him as the only bulwark against the very fanatics whom he has helped. Put bluntly, he wants to be an arsonist and a fireman at the same time. The question is whether he will get away with this time-honoured ploy, ” wrote David Blair in [itals]The Telegraph[enditals]
Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria who quit in February in disillusionment over Mr. Obama’s unwillingness to arm moderate Syrian rebels, said, “I don’t see how you can contain the Islamic State over the medium term if you don’t address their base of operations in Syria.”
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that ISIS fighters can be contained only so long and that at some point their Syrian sanctuary will have to be dealt with.
“Can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no,” he said.
“That [sanctuary] will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border. And that will come when we have a coalition in the region that takes on the task of defeating ISIS over time.”
ISIS released a video on Aug. 19 of Mr. Foley’s beheading and declared in an Internet posting that he was executed because of U.S. air strikes against the group in Iraq that began earlier this month.
Mr. Foley’s beheading, Mr. Rhodes said, was a “terrorist attack” against America.
“He’s an American and we see that as an attack on our country when one of our own is killed like that,” said Mr. Rhodes.
Mr. Rhodes declined to say whether Mr. Obama was seeking congressional authorization for additional actions in Syria. The strikes in Iraq were at the invitation of that government.
“As we’ve done against Al-Qaeda around the world, we’ll take whatever action is necessary to protect our people,” Mr. Rhodes said.
U.S. military forces carried out three airstrikes on Islamic terrorists Friday in the vicinity of Iraq’s Mosul Dam, the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, said in a statement. There have been 93 airstrikes since Aug. 8.
Bloomberg News, with files from news s
end quote from:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/22/u-s-considers-air-strikes-on-isis-targets-in-syria-may-have-to-co-ordinate-with-assad/
I think at this point that air strikes co-ordinated with Assad against the ISlamic State even in Syria is going to happen. Though there are extremist individuals all over earth no government can survive in the Middle east unless the Islamic state is driven back to being a terrorist organization without funds or armored vehicles and without missiles that can hit something 70,000 feet high in the sky and bring down not only a passenger plane but also military aircraft as well.
Also, if you want to more easily see the videos from Canada here is a word button:
Ben Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said Friday that a strategy to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) needed to deal with both sides of the border in Iraq and Syria.
“We’re not going to be restricted by borders,” he said. “If you come against Americans, we are going to come after you.”
Air strikes on the Sunni terrorists ISIS in Syria could aid President Bashar Al-Assad who has been fighting a three-year civil war that has killed at least 191,000 according to the United Nations.
Mr. Obama has called on Mr. Assad to step down, but has been leery of intervening in Syria least he gets drawn into a bigger confrontation.
However, ISIS’s beheading this week of American journalist James Foley, along with warnings that the group now poses a danger to the world, could see the U.S. launch air strikes in Syria even without the permission of Mr. Assad.
GlobalPostJames
Foley of Rochester, N.H., a freelance contributor for GlobalPost, in
Benghazi, Libya. In a horrifying act of revenge for U.S. airstrikes in
northern Iraq, militants with the Islamic State extremist group have
beheaded Foley — and are threatening to kill another hostage, U.S.
officials say.
Christopher Meyer, a former British Ambassador to the United States, has advocated for the U.S., Britain and allies to stop working for the overthrow of the Assad regime, and to work with it.
“I can’t imagine the U.S. would risk their bombers and drones being shot down by Syrian fighter aircraft or ground-to-air missiles. To avoid that, U.S. strikes would need to be done in co-ordination with Assad. This in turn would require a political somersault of truly dramatic proportions,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
“In the face of [ISIS], a common enemy, the U.S. and probably the U.K. would be working with a regime we have been trying to unseat for the better part of three years.
“But the harsh truth is that events in what used to be called the Levant and Mesopotamia demand an accommodation with President Assad.”
He added, “This would be the mother of all U-turns. It would stick in the craw of many. But, as the great Victorian foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, once said, we have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.”
Some experts believe Mr. Assad has deliberately avoided targeting ISIS, allowing them to prosper so that the West would eventually be forced to choose between supporting him or letting ISIS grow stronger.
“Like many Middle Eastern dictators before him, Assad hopes the West will accept him as the only bulwark against the very fanatics whom he has helped. Put bluntly, he wants to be an arsonist and a fireman at the same time. The question is whether he will get away with this time-honoured ploy, ” wrote David Blair in [itals]The Telegraph[enditals]
Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria who quit in February in disillusionment over Mr. Obama’s unwillingness to arm moderate Syrian rebels, said, “I don’t see how you can contain the Islamic State over the medium term if you don’t address their base of operations in Syria.”
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that ISIS fighters can be contained only so long and that at some point their Syrian sanctuary will have to be dealt with.
“Can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no,” he said.
“That [sanctuary] will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border. And that will come when we have a coalition in the region that takes on the task of defeating ISIS over time.”
ISIS released a video on Aug. 19 of Mr. Foley’s beheading and declared in an Internet posting that he was executed because of U.S. air strikes against the group in Iraq that began earlier this month.
Mr. Foley’s beheading, Mr. Rhodes said, was a “terrorist attack” against America.
“He’s an American and we see that as an attack on our country when one of our own is killed like that,” said Mr. Rhodes.
Mr. Rhodes declined to say whether Mr. Obama was seeking congressional authorization for additional actions in Syria. The strikes in Iraq were at the invitation of that government.
“As we’ve done against Al-Qaeda around the world, we’ll take whatever action is necessary to protect our people,” Mr. Rhodes said.
U.S. military forces carried out three airstrikes on Islamic terrorists Friday in the vicinity of Iraq’s Mosul Dam, the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, said in a statement. There have been 93 airstrikes since Aug. 8.
Bloomberg News, with files from news s
end quote from:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/22/u-s-considers-air-strikes-on-isis-targets-in-syria-may-have-to-co-ordinate-with-assad/
I think at this point that air strikes co-ordinated with Assad against the ISlamic State even in Syria is going to happen. Though there are extremist individuals all over earth no government can survive in the Middle east unless the Islamic state is driven back to being a terrorist organization without funds or armored vehicles and without missiles that can hit something 70,000 feet high in the sky and bring down not only a passenger plane but also military aircraft as well.
Also, if you want to more easily see the videos from Canada here is a word button:
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