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Obama: Russia and Iran are losing in Syria

April 12, 2014 at 9:33 am

Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are losing the war in Syria, US President Barack Obama said. In reference to the unwillingness of Washington to embroil itself militarily in the Syrian conflict, Obama said, in an interview with Bloomberg: “We supported military aid to a moderate opposition in Syria, but in fact if you are looking for a change in the military realities on the ground, the nature of the participation of the US military forces must be so important that many questions will be arising regarding the ‘justifications for our international authority to do so’.”


Barack ObamaRussia, Iran and Hezbollah are losing the war in Syria, US President Barack Obama said.

Military embroilment

In reference to the unwillingness of Washington to embroil itself militarily in the Syrian conflict, Obama said, in an interview with Bloomberg: “We supported military aid to a moderate opposition in Syria, but in fact if you are looking for a change in the military realities on the ground, the nature of the participation of the US military forces must be so important that many questions will be arising regarding the ‘justifications for our international authority to do so’.”

He added: “We will continue to do everything to reach a political solution so as to put pressure on the Russians and the Iranians, clarifying to them that it is not in their interest to participate in a permanent war.

“I always enjoy with bitterness the sentence that Iran has somehow triumphed in Syria; this depletes them because they have to send billions of dollars. Their main agent, Hezbollah, who had a strong and comfortable position in Lebanon, finds itself attacked by extremist Sunnis and this is not good for Iran; they are losing as much as anyone else. The Russians are finding out that their only friend in the region is amid the rubble and is losing his legitimacy,” Obama continued.

The Christian Science Monitor newspaper quoted the former US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, as saying, during his lecture at an American University, that the Syrian authorities are accountable for the failure of the negotiations of Geneva II.

Ford said: “The role that was played by the opposition was miserable too; where they have not been able to distance themselves from the elements of Al-Qaeda, there are very bad people in the opposition. Whenever the opposition gets to unite, Al-Assad’s support base will crack faster.”

Collapse of the state

Ford said: “The armed groups and even jihadist ones such as the Islamic Front must take part in the negotiations.”

He pointed out that the groups that are fighting alongside the system, such as the Syrian army, Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, must also join the negotiations. Moreover, he considered that the Syrian state is “crumbling slowly”.

The authority, he explained, does not have the manpower for returning Deir Al-Zor, Al-Raqqa or the areas that are controlled by the Kurds, while, at the same time, the armed opposition cannot have control over the entire country.

On the other hand, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said, after his meeting with United Nations and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi in Geneva, that “the main issue at the moment is to push the parties of the crisis in Syria to continue the dialogue.”

Lavrov, who also met with the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, stressed on the need to expedite the continuation of talks between the parties of the conflict in Syria, pointing to the importance of Brahimi’s efforts in the talks that aim to reach a middle ground and a peaceful settlement for the Syrian crisis.