At a press conference held on the sidelines of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Peru last week, US President Barack Obama showed gloom and doom about the Syrian situation and gave the distinct impression that Washington was and is helpless about doing anything meaningful and effective about it.

‘”I am not optimistic about the short-term prospects for Syria,” Obama said, adding that since Russia and Iran took the decision to back the regime of President Bashar Assad and have been conducting a “brutal air campaign” with no regard for civilian casualties, “it is hard for a committed moderate opposition to hold its grounds for long period of time”.

Obama’s appraisal of the situation in Syria pretty much tallies with that of most of the world, and his pessimistic prognosis for the country does not come as a surprise.

What surprises is the US president’s refusal to acknowledge that the dismal future of Syria is to a great extent his country’s own making, for leaving the fate of the war pretty much in the hands of Russia and Iran.

The Syrian conflict is nearly six years old. At the beginning of the conflict, much before Russia and Iran moved in on the side of the Assad regime that they propped with air power and troops on the ground, the Obama administration could have done a great deal to change the course of conflict, yet it chose to do next to nothing.

Lending support, at tremendous cost, to a medley of murky “opposition” figures with no clear vision or mandate was a fateful mistake.

Later, preferring to stay on the sidelines and leaving Syria’s destiny in the hands of Russia and Iran, the US became ineffectual and ignored. Not that it had any desire to get involved anyway.

And so it is that on Obama’s watch, the leader of the mightiest nation on earth, hundreds of thousands of Syrian were killed, caught between regime forces aided by Russia and Iran, and ruthless terrorists who found in Syria fertile soil for their sick designs.

Obama rejected every counsel from his key advisers, early in the conflict, including that offered by the then secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former CIA head Leon Panetta and former secretary of defence Robert Gates, to “intervene” and not allow a vacuum for Russia and Iran to fill.

Now he is lamenting the future of Syria and its people, sealed in favour of Assad and his allies, when he could have changed Syria’s course and maybe brought the war to an early end, sparing many lives and destruction.

SOURCE:   http://jordantimes.com/opinion/editorial/poor-legacy#comment-35007