Obama Concedes to Putin

Putin Instructs the U.S. to Get Out of the Way in Syria

In spite of the commitment of the Obama administration to force Assad to step down, when a forceful and dynamic leader like Putin took control, the U.S. tucked its tail between its legs and moved aside.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia’s long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad’s future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria’s civil war.

“The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change,” Kerry told reporters in the Russian capital after meeting President Vladimir Putin. A major international conference on Syria would take place later this week in New York, Kerry announced.

Kerry reiterated the U.S. position that Assad, accused by the West of massive human rights violations and chemical weapons attacks, won’t be able to steer Syria out of more than four years of conflict.

But after a day of discussions with Assad’s key international backer, Kerry said the focus now is “not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad.” Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which “Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria.”

Kerry’s declarations crystallized the evolution in U.S. policy on Assad over the last several months, as the Islamic State group’s growing influence in the Middle East has taken priority.

Appearing beside Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hailed what he described as a “big negotiating day,” saying the sides advanced efforts to define what a Syrian transition process might look like.

Kerry also suggested that the world is better off when Russia and the U.S. work together, he added, calling Obama and Putin’s current cooperation a “sign of maturity.”

Unfortunately, what really happened is that Obama and his administration completely mishandled the situation in the Middle East and hundreds or thousands of lives have been lost because of it. The Syrian civil war has blown up and gotten out of control, in many respects due to Obama’s poor leadership.

The U.S. and the office of the president have seen a dramatic loss of respect and authority since Obama took office, and Russia, recently seen as an economic basket case and an also-ran, is now showing strength and vision, even if it is self serving and based on thuggery. But Obama has shown once again that he is merely an unprepared community organizer with poor skills, and that he is woefully ignorant regarding geopolitics and how the game is played.

Source: hosted.ap.org