Since when does Obama threaten to overthrow a government? According to the New York Times, that’s exactly what Obama said he’d do if Assad shot down any US planes as they target ISIS.
But last I checked it was the Obama administration’s policies that we need permission from a country before conducting airstrikes inside that country. But we’ll ignore that for the time being given the circumstances.
What I would expect Obama to threaten Assad with is severe retaliation if their regime shot down one of our planes. But government overthrow? That’s awfully specific:
TIMES OF ISRAEL – As President Barack Obama has said he would authorize military forces to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad if regime troops attempt to shoot down American planes as they strike Islamic State targets in Syria, according to a New York Times report.
The move would represent a significant shift in Washington’s stated aims in Syria and Iraq, where a campaign of airstrikes has been planned to thwart the advance of the IS jihadi group. It also highlights the tangle of alliances and antagonisms in the war-torn region, where the US and Syria, while not allies, find themselves both fighting the same foe.
Citing members of a group of people who met with Obama in a closed meeting last week, The New York Times reported that the president said he would wipe out Assad’s air defense system if he tried to hit American planes. The move, he said, would lead to Assad’s overthrow, according to the newspaper’s account.
Syria’s air defenses have taken a major hit in the country’s north and east, but the air force is still active, firing rockets and dropping crude bombs on rebel-held areas on daily basis.
Obama called on Wednesday for a “systematic campaign of airstrikes, hitting IS targets as Iraqi forces go on the offensive.” He said American bombers would not hesitate to hit IS in Syria, even though, unlike Iraq, it had not requested assistance.
He added that in the fight against the Islamic State group, the US “cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people — a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost,” insisting rather that strengthening the opposition is “the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.”
Truth is Obama wants to overthrow the Syrian government and I think he’s looking for an excuse to do it. Heck he’s been helping get Libyan weapons to the rebels for years and hasn’t been able to accomplish it.
It just doesn’t make sense that he would threaten such a thing otherwise. Obama claims not to like war and always claims its up to the people to overthrow their own governments — you know, to let democracy reign and all.
But in this case he actually threatens to take out the Assad regime completely. I don’t think he makes such claims flippantly. And it wouldn’t surprise me if, just like the use of chemical weapons, the rebels take out a US plane and Obama blames Assad. Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me in the least if that’s how all of this goes down.
MEANWHILE:
TIMES NEWS OF ISRAEL – The United States is providing the Assad regime with accurate intelligence on Islamic State targets in Syria through a third country, a Syrian regime daily reported on Monday, contradicting American claims that no such cooperation existed.
Quoting unnamed diplomatic sources in Paris, Al-Watan reported that Syria has received “very accurate information” from a foreign intelligence agency over the past weeks regarding movements and meetings of Islamic State leaders in Syria. Based on that intelligence, the daily reported, Syrian aircraft attacked the location of the leaders and “hit the targets with precision.”
Al-Watan claimed the information originated in the US, and may have been conveyed via “Baghdad, Moscow, Berlin, or even the military command center located in Irbil (in northern Iraq).”
No comment was available from the US State Department at time of publication.