Why America was bound to fail in Syria
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/why-america-was-bound-to-fail-in-syria/2016/12/15/f69c8be8-c315-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_story.html
Un article du mois dernier de David Ignatius, commenté ci-dessous par Gareth Porter
US intervention in Syria ? Not under Trump
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/syrian-army-only-option-us-if-it-wants-fight-terror-1775504124
The Ignatius account reflects a fundamental reality throughout northern Syria, from 2013 onwards, that was simply ignored in media coverage: all of the opposition groups have been absorbed into an al-Qaeda-controlled political-military order. The idea that the “moderate” groups could be a bulwark against al-Qaeda, which is now being peddled by #Lister, Cafarella and CNAS, no longer has any credibility even in those quarters in Washington that were once open to it.
A tell-tale sign of the shift in attitude toward those groups’ mood in Washington is the fact that Ignatius used the past tense in referring to the CIA’s programme of arming the “moderate” groups in Syria in his article last month.
The US military leadership was never on board with the policy of relying on those armed groups to advance US interests in Syria in the first place.
It recognised that, despite the serious faults of the Assad regime, the Syrian army was the only Syrian institution committed to resisting both al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
It seems likely that the Trump administration will now return to that point as it tries to rebuild a policy from the ashes of the failed policy of the Obama administration.