Free Syrian Army fighters (Reuters/Muzaffar Salman)
Syrians To Be Trained To Defend Territory, Not Take Ground From Jihadists, Officials Say -- Washington Post
The Syrian opposition force to be recruited by the U.S. military and its coalition partners will be trained to defend territory, rather than to seize it back from the Islamic State, according to senior U.S. and allied officials, some of whom are concerned that the approach is flawed.
Although moderate Syrian fighters are deemed essential to defeating the Islamic State under the Obama administration’s strategy, officials do not believe the newly assembled units will be capable of capturing key towns from militants without the help of forward-deployed U.S. combat teams, which President Obama has so far ruled out. The Syrian rebel force will be tasked instead with trying to prevent the Islamic State from extending its reach beyond the large stretches of territory it already controls.
“We have a big disconnect within our strategy. We need a credible, moderate Syrian force, but we have not been willing to commit what it takes to build that force,” said a senior U.S. official involved in Syria and Iraq operations who, like others cited in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the training program.
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My Comment: So much for the line that "offense is the best defense". This U.S. strategy is a strategy for defeat.
2 comments:
This is an admission of defeat.
Man, then you REALLY must hate George Kennan.
It's not a strategy of defeat, it's called letting them defend their territory, have the civilian population realize that there is a difference between ISIL, Assad, and the Syrua they are trying to build.
Remember, ISIL is an IDEOLOGY. You beat an IDEOLOGY by proving that your ideology is better, not just killing everyone you see (especially sincce it's been proven in tribal societies that killing them only makes things harder in the long run).
ISIL is already overextending itself. The situation will be solved, probably by the Turks and the Shi'a.
What we are doing is attempting to contain the spread iof ISIL, setting it up for destruction.
You forget the difference between tactics and strategy.
This time, we actually have a strategy.
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