Obama hoped to end his tenure with a victory in Syria: Writer

Barack Obama is dismayed that his presidency is ending with the fall of Aleppo to the Syrian government while he hoped to end his tenure with a victory in Syria, says Stephen Lendman, an American writer, journalist and political commentator.

Speaking at a summit of Pacific leaders in Lima, Peru, on Sunday, Obama predicted that Syria's second city, Aleppo, was going to fall to Syrian forces supported by Damascus’ allies, Russia and Iran. 

"Once Russia and Iran made a decision to back Assad in a brutal air campaign... it was very hard to see a way in which even a trained and committed moderate opposition could hold its ground for long periods of time,” he said.

Obama, whose country is funding and training anti-Syrian militants, also said he is "not optimistic" about the Arab country’s future. "I am not optimistic about the short-term prospects in Syria.”

Lendman told Press TV on Monday Obama calls Syrian militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad moderates, “but they are not moderates, they are all terrorists.”

“Anybody, who is armed and fighting the Syrian government, is a terrorist. And most of them are imported from scores of other countries, and they are getting foreign backing from America, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Israel, and so on,” the analyst stated.

“He said that the battle of Aleppo will go to the Syrian government and against the so-called moderates. Well, of course, it will,” he noted.

“Syria is conducting a major wide-scale campaign now, a ground campaign. But the scoundrel media, as I’d like to call them, are saying that Russian and Syrian warplanes are bombing eastern Aleppo while they stopped bombing eastern Aleppo on 18th of October, and the only bombing that’s going on is on the outskirts of Aleppo, in east Aleppo,” the political commentator explained.  

“But there is a major ground campaign underway on now. It should be very effective, because Syria has elite troops involved and so on. A lot of elite forces will be put into fight. And Russia is striking their supply lines, and making it very hard for these terrorist to operate properly,” he further elaborated.

“So the city will fall. Obama is no doubt apoplectic. He hoped to end his tenure with a victory in Syria. He’s getting his ears pinned back,” he continued.

“So the end of his presidency would be: He made a mess of Syria. He killed over half a million people. He displaced half of the country, and that’s only one of his high crimes. …So he is very dismayed,” Lendman argued.

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. US officials often describe the militants fighting against the Syrian government and people as “moderate opposition” forces.

The years-long conflict has left more than 470,000 Syrians dead and half of the country’s population of about 23 million displaced within or beyond the Arab country’s borders.

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www.presstv.co.uk