Diplomatic Opinion – Ali Tuygan

26 January 2015
With ISIS controlling swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, terrorist attacks in Paris, turmoil in Libya and Yemen, Boko Haram’s massacres in Nigeria, public discourse of the West on Syria has started to change. References to President Assad’s ouster are less frequently heard. There is continuing talk about train-and-equip programs for the moderate Syrian opposition but these do not reflect much conviction. As a matter of fact, during an interview on 8 August 2014, President Obama has told Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times that,
“…the notion that arming the rebels would have made a difference has always been a fantasy. This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.” Continue reading →