Russia confounds U.S. with Syria military moves
Middle East
Russia confounds U.S. with Syria military moves
Tensions
between the U.S. and Russia are escalating over Russian airstrikes that
are apparently serving to strengthen Syrian President Bashar
Assad. Russia’s decision to intervene this week could prolong and
exacerbate an already brutal conflict that has spawned the largest
refugee crisis since World War II and helped the rise of the radical
Islamic State. The Obama administration has been criticized, first for a
delayed response to the civil war over the past four years and now for
its hesitancy to take a firm position on Russia’s moves.
Such strikes have the potential to further alienate the remaining so-called moderate or nationalist elements of the Syrian antigovernment forces, potentially driving them toward more hard-line, Islamist militant groups.
Syrian President Bashar Assad
Some
U.S. officials have welcomed a Russian role in Syria, provided it is
limited to fighting the Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates. But
formulating a decisive response has been slow. Russia’s defense ministry
said it had hit targets in Syria only belonging to the Islamic State
militant group. However, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said he
had no indication that the Russians had hit IS targets. As of Thursday,
meetings between the two countries had yielded only the beginning of
military-to-military talks.
Our goals for this meeting are to facilitate the flow of information between coalition forces and Russian elements that will help us maintain the safety of our personnel in the region … to ensure that any additional Russian actions do not interfere with our coalition’s efforts to degrade and defeat IS.U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter
No comments:
Post a Comment