By David Singer —— Bio and Archives October 23, 2016
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“The goal here is to take back Mosul. It's going to be a hard fight. I've got no illusions about that. And then continue to press into Syria to begin to take back and move on Raqqa, which is the ISIS headquarters.”
“So I have said, look, we need to keep our eye on ISIS. That's why I want to have an intelligence surge that protects us here at home, why we have to go after them from the air, on the ground, online, why we have to make sure here at home we don't let terrorists buy weapons. If you're too dangerous to fly, you're too dangerous to buy a gun.Great policies - if implemented in co-operation with Russia – but could result in a dangerous escalation in Syria with both Russia and Iran if undertaken unilaterally.
“And I'm going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees, but to, frankly, gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians so that perhaps we can have the kind of serious negotiation necessary to bring the conflict to an end and go forward on a political track.”
… “would not be done just on the first day. This would take a lot of negotiation. And it would also take making it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground.”Presumably Syria would continue to burn whilst President Clinton negotiated with President Putin.
“… our country is so outplayed by Putin and Assad, and by the way -- and by Iran. Nobody can believe how stupid our leadership is.”He identified America’s present precarious position as a result:
“he [Assad] has aligned with Russia and with Iran. They don't want ISIS, but they have other things, because we're backing -- we're backing rebels. We don't know who the rebels are. We're giving them lots of money, lots of everything. We don't know who the rebels are”He enunciated his policy in the second Presidential debate:
“ I believe we have to get ISIS. We have to worry about ISIS before we can get too much more involved. “He had previously made clear the way forward:
"Wouldn't it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of ISIS?"Voters have a stark choice come election day.
David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com