'Obama administration does not have clear policy toward Syria'
The administration of US President Barack Obama does not have a clear policy towards Syria and is suffering from “contradiction” and “confusion,” a former US Senate policy adviser and diplomat says.
“As usual, President Obama's comments about Syria seem to be somewhat confused and contradictory,” said James Jatras, who is also a specialist in international relations and legislative politics in Washington.
Obama has repeatedly called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to give up power but has also said overthrowing him would be a mistake, Jatras told Press TV on Sunday.
In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Obama said that toppling the government of Assad would be a mistake.
"It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain or a common nation of Western states to send in ground troops and overthrow the Assad regime," he said.
The US president, however, said that all of the parties involved in Syria crisis, including Iran, Russian and what he called the moderate opposition group, can be pressurized into brokering a transition.
“But, I do believe that we can apply international pressure to all the parties, including Russia and Iran, who essentially are propping up Assad, as well as those moderate opposition that exist and may be fighting inside of Syria to sit down at the table and try to broker a transition,” Obama stated.
Since March 2011, the United States and its regional allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been conducting a proxy war against Syria.
The years-long conflict has left more than 470,000 Syrians dead and half of the country’s population displaced.
Since September 2014, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against purported Daesh positions inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or the United Nations.
Iran and Russia have helped fight the Daesh militants and other terrorists in Syria, but at the Assad government’s request.
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