Is The U.S. About To Shift It's Policy On Removing Syrian President Assad?

Tomas Munita/The New York Times

Obama Admin Debates Whether Assad Really Must Go -- Josh Rogin, Daily Beast

Now that the U.S. government and the Syrian regime are both fighting ISIS in Iraq, the faltering U.S. drive to topple Assad is in even more peril.

There’s a battle raging inside the Obama administration about whether the United States ought to push away from its goal of toppling Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and into a de facto alliance with the Damascus regime to fight ISIS and other Sunni extremists in the region.

As President Obama slowly but surely increases the U.S. military presence on the ground in Iraq, his administration is grappling with the immediate need to stop the ISIS advance and push for a political solution in Baghdad. The 3 1/2-year grinding civil war is Syria has been put on a back burner for now. Some officials inside the administration are proposing that the drive to remove Assad from power, which Obama announced as U.S. policy in 2012, be set aside, too. The focus, these officials argue, should instead be on the region’s security and stability. Governments fighting for survival against extremists should be shored up, not undermined.

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My Comment: Even the New York Times is acknowledging that President Obama's anti-terrorism policy and strategy in the Middle East is falling apart .... Obama’s Blueprint for Fighting Terrorism Collides With Reality in Iraq (NYT). My prediction .... the U.S. has no policy or direction on what to do in this region .... and I do not see any changes from the White House in the foreseeable future. But in the short term .... Assad is going to be left alone by the U.S., and there will be no start on developing/changing U.S. policy on Iraq until the Pentagon's assessment on the situation is completed within the the next few weeks.