“President Obama still won’t bend on his refusal to take any military action against Assad, and has insisted that Russia’s intervention on his behalf will backfire, opening the door to a diplomatic solution that Secretary of State John Kerry has been seeking”, reports the Examiner. We continue to study this.
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Patterson suggested the biggest obstacle to the plan was the “massive, massive amount of air support” they’d need to create such a safe zone, saying that committing so much of the military to that would ultimately mean fewer resources for attacking ISIS.
Eighty-five to 90 percent of Russian airstrikes in Syria have hit the moderate Syrian opposition, not Islamic State militants, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Anne Patterson, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that he would like to see countries involved in the Syria conflict agree on a list of opposition groups that should be invited to peace talks, as well as a list of extremist groups that should not be covered by a cease-fire “when it is declared”, the Associated Press reported.
Nuland said Russia is spending $2 million to $4 million a day on its air campaign in Syria at a time when Russians are hurting from an economic downturn.
“As we accelerate our own work with Turkey and other like-minded partners to roll back ISIL in northern Syria, a collateral benefit could be the creation of a space where Syrian civilians are free from Assad’s barrel bombs, as well as ISIL’s atrocities”, she said.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the committee, called Obama’s policy “tepid” and “very ineffectual”. “This test was a prudent measure exclusively to ensure that, in the event coalition aircraft encounter a Russian aircraft during operations in Syria, one of the established and agreed upon modes of communication in the agreement functioned”, Davis said.
On Friday, the Obama administration, under pressure from lawmakers, announced that it will be putting up to 50 us special operations troops in northern Syria to advise and assist rebel forces there.
Obama’s former Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus and former defense secretary Robert Gates have also expressed support for establishing no-fly or safe zones.
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“It is also extremely hard to patrol and to protect these safe zones on the ground. But the primary reason is the investment of air power”, Patterson said.
