THE SYRIA FOREIGN POLICY DEBACLE (CONT.)

How completely has the Obama administration…include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in this… botched Syria?

So badly that even the Democrat-friendly, two-time-Obama-supporting, currently-Hillary-loving Washington Post can’t fake it.

Excerpted from today’s editorial:

FOR SEVERAL years, the Obama administration’s Syria policy has been stuck in a cycle of failure. Secretary of State John F. Kerry negotiates deals with Russia to end the fighting or create a new government in Damascus, while warning that if they are not respected by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the United States will consider other options, such as stepping up support for Syrian rebels. In every case, the Russian and Syrian regimes have betrayed their commitments, continuing to bomb civilian areas, employ chemical weapons and deny aid to besieged communities. And no wonder: Each time the U.S. response has been to return to the Russians, offering more concessions and pleading for another deal.

As several experts on Syria told The Post, it is a deal whose only tangible result would likely be the reinforcement of the Assad regime — whose relentless brutality has empowered the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Administration officials claim they have no alternative but to go along with Mr. Putin. The former Plan B, more support for rebels, would merely lead to more fighting with little result, they say. It’s the same logic that President Obama has used to deflect proposals for U.S. action in support of anti-Assad forces since 2012 — even as the country, and the region around it, spiraled deeper and deeper into bloodshed, chaos and humanitarian crisis. Mr. Obama appears fiercely determined to learn nothing from his tragic mistakes in Syria. The latest U.S. proposal, if accepted by Mr. Putin, would compound the damage.

The above excerpt (and the rest of the editorial, which I urge you to read), sad to say, is right on the mark.  Barack Obama – first with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and now John Kerry – has done nothing but make a complete mess of Syria.  And the cost has been astounding:  most estimates put the death toll at over 400,000, with – as we certainly are aware – countless Syrian fleeing the country and going elsewhere.

It is, I suppose, too much to ask the Post to explain Hillary Clinton’s role in the decisions which started this devastation.  But at least its editorial board is talking about the devastation itself, and has given us an accurate chronology.

For that, thanks are in order.