US made huge mistake by calling on Assad to step down: ex-US official
Former U.S. national security advisor Robert Pastor has criticized the Obama administration for its policies regarding Syria.
"I think the United States made a huge mistake early on by deciding that [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad had to go," Pastor told Foreign Policy. "Assad is not the problem in Syria."
Pastor, who was working during the administration of former president Jimmy Carter, is opposed to sending weapons to militants fighting against the government forces in Syria.
"The U.S. unwittingly encouraged the opposition by making them think we're going to come to their rescue, which gave them a jolt of support," he added. "They're never going to be strong enough to overcome Assad's army."
Washington is planning to arm the militant groups in Syria. The decision was taken after the recent gains by the Syrian army.
Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin is not satisfied with just arming the militants in Syria. He has urged the White House to bomb Syrian “airfields, airplanes and massed artillery.”
“Increased military pressure on Assad is the only way to achieve a negotiated settlement in Syria, which in turn is needed to restore stability to a region that certainly doesn’t need any more instability,” Levin said during a Wednesday speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In an interview with Press TV, American political analyst Stephen Lendman said Levin is another “war criminal in the Washington’s establishment” after “he outrageously wants the Pentagon to bomb Syria.”
“Levin wants to make it a direct war. He wants the Pentagon to get involved, which means he wants NATO to get involved, which means he wants to replicate what happened in Libya that means daily bombings, the country was ravaged, tens of thousandsof innocent people were killed,” Lendman said. “Levin wants the same thing repeated in Syria.”
A new poll conducted by Quinnipiac University shows that American voters have handed U.S. President Barack Obama his worst grade ever on foreign policy, giving him a 52 percent disapproval rating.
Some 48 percent also disapproved his handling of the Syrian crisis, according to the survey released on Thursday.
A significant majority of Americans believe it is not in the national interest to send troops into Syria and also oppose arming militant groups in the conflict. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they were opposed to American involvement in Syria and 59percent also said they were against arming the militants.