Former US Ambassador to Syria Says Assad’s Brutality, Not ISIS, Behind Refugee

“The Assad regime’s brutality is driving recruitment into the Islamic State”. In Iraq, the U.S. first favored the exiled politician and disgraced banker Ahmed Chalabi, an ineffective leader who provided false information about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. The Syrian government and Russian Federation, a strong backer of Assad, accuse rebel forces of using poison gas.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., shared similar misgivings. When the Arab Spring protests erupted a decade later, the USA security establishment viewed the sudden vulnerability of the Qaddafi and Assad regimes as a similar opportunity to install new regimes in Libya and Syria.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he’s anxious about the “void” left by Assad’s removal in the absence of any viable moderate opposition. They tend to use one of the many “routes” created by heroin traffickers to ship their product from Afghanistan to northern Europe and the Russian Federation.

As for the Islamic State posing a threat to the United States, Allen said it should be taken seriously. “Our batting record is very poor”. But U.S. President Barack Obama cast the buildup as an effort to prop up Assad.

The extremist group has used mustard agents on at least four occasions as it fights to expand its self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq.

Syria’s military is the only one fighting ISIS and other terrorists on its territory.

Attempts at a settlement have failed before and are unlikely to be reached because the United States and its allies have made clear that no diplomatic solution will include Assad remaining in power, while Iran and Russian Federation have fervently contended that he will. In February of 2014, the Geneva II Conference yielded no settlement as the opposition and the government could not even agree on the evacuation of Homs for humanitarian reasons.

“What we ought to do is rethink that $500 million that we’ve committed, how much we’ve spent already as far as trying to recruit in Syria”, Manchin told Al-Monitor. Congress can help by pressing the Obama administration not only on the need for more manpower and firepower against ISIS, but also on the lack of a civil-military campaign plan and a coherent architecture to prosecute this fight. After Iraq’s 2010 parliamentary election resulted in a slim victory for Ayad Allawi, a Shiite politician whose bloc included both Sunnis and Shiites, the U.S. pushed Allawi aside in favor of Iran’s preferred candidate, Nouri al-Malaki, whom we had supported since 2006.

It follows warnings that two in every 100 people claiming to be Syrian refugees are actually ISIS fighters intent on carrying out bloody attacks against the west.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, agreed.

As reported by Western Journalism, the Obama administration announced last week that it plans to increase the number of Syrian war refugees admitted into the United States over sixfold during the next fiscal year.

“Part of good strategic thinking is that you modify your strategy according to changed circumstances”, King told Austin during the hearing. “[We’ve] got about five to 10 years to take out these old Soviet “surrogate” regimes – Iraq, Syria, and the rest – before the next superpower [China] comes along to challenge us in the region”.

King went on to embrace McCain’s calls for a humanitarian corridor that would be defended against incursions by Assad’s air force.