Remarks by President Obama at G20 Press Conference | November 16, 2014
▻http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/16/remarks-president-obama-g20-press-conference-november-16-2014
Q But just to put a fine point on it — are you actively discussing ways to remove him [President Bashar al-Assad] as a part of that political transition?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: No.
Remarks by President Obama at G20 Press Conference, White House, November 16, 2014.
▻http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2014/11/17/you-might-have-missed-drones-obama-on-proxies-and-u-s-china-military-rela
Obama: But we’re also very firm on the need to uphold core international principles. And one of those principles is that you don’t invade other countries or finance proxies and support them in ways that break up a country that has mechanisms for democratic elections.
(3PA: The United States led coercive regime change invasions in three countries in the past thirteen years. Moreover, the international community has been funding and training proxies in the Syrian civil war for almost two years, and on September 19 Obama signed legislation to include the Pentagon in training the proxies. Presumably, these core international principles apply exclusively to other countries.)