Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on 'Worldwide threats to America and our allies' in Washington, February 2016. (Reuters)
Washington Post: U.S. officials: Russian airstrikes have changed ‘calculus completely’ in Syria
Russian military intervention in Syria has turned the course of that country’s civil war against U.S.-backed rebel groups, increasing the likelihood that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his loyalists will remain in power, U.S. intelligence officials testified Tuesday.
The assessment amounts to an acknowledgment by U.S. spy agencies that Russian airstrikes have derailed the Obama administration’s aims of pushing Assad aside as part of a political settlement to the nearly five-year old conflict.
“The Russian reinforcement has changed the calculus completely,” Lt. Gen. Vincent R. Stewart, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in Senate testimony. Assad is “in a much stronger negotiating position than he was just six months ago,” Stewart said. “I’m more inclined to believe that he is a player on the stage longer term than he was six months to a year ago.”
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WNU Editor: So much for President Obama saying that Syria will be Russia's quagmire .... The Syria War Will Not Be a Quagmire -- Because Putin and Assad Are Winning (Alastair Crooke, Huffington Post). The Washington Post is also brutal in its editorial on President Obama's Syrian policy .... Mr. Obama stands by silently as Russia continues its onslaught in Syria (editorial, Washington Post). But in defense of President Obama's policy ..... there are really no good options in the Syrian conflict short of the U.S. becoming actively involved and even possibly getting into a shooting war with Russian jets over Syria.