OPINION:
President Obama confidently assured us as recently as last Friday that the ongoing Russian military action in Syria will fail. In fact, his entire national security and foreign policy team tell us almost daily that Russia and its Iranian allies will not succeed in keeping Syrian President Bashar Assad in power. By my calendar, the Russians have been using air power for just over three weeks, regardless of whether they are targeting the Islamic State or Syrian opposition forces. Three weeks — and the president insists this will fail. I’d like to know at which flea market Mr. Obama bought his crystal ball.
Has the president noticed that he’s been bombing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria for over a year and still best he can tell us is ’This will take time’ and ’There will be setbacks.’ I don’t recall Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stating or predicting, as Mr. Obama likes to do, that the American bombing effort was doomed to failure the day our first drone fired a Hellfire missile.
Mr. Obama and his minions continue making bold statements that Mr. Assad’s days are numbered. On Aug. 18, 2011, the president said, “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. … For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”
Russia hasn’t even had to change the oil in its bombers yet and it’s doomed to fail? We’ve been bombing the Islamic State for over a year and Mr. Assad is still in power. So who’s policy is failing?
RANDALL STEPHENS
Falls Church, Va.
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