The White House argued Wednesday that the best way to resolve the turmoil in Syria is not to send a significant ground force, but instead to “chip away” at the problem by continuing to push for a political solution.
Multilateral talks aimed at bringing peace to the war-torn country have faltered for months now, as Syrian opposition groups have said they can’t participate while being attacked.
But White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Wednesday repeated there is no “Plan B” at this point for Syria, and said the best option is to keep plugging away at a political answer that still seems far from materializing.
“[President Obama] and his advisers have looked at all of the options and … none of them are good,” Earnest said when pressed on whether there are any other paths to success.
“Even the Russians have indicated that they believe a political transition is what’s required,” he added. “So, it’s just going to require the international community continuing to chip away at this problem and try to bring all the parties to the table, and jumpstart this process.”
Earnest was asked at the daily White House briefing whether there are any other options that can be pursued to stop Syrian President Bashar Assad from slaughtering his civilians, even if it’s short of a full occupation.
But Earnest didn’t address if there were any middle-ground options, and instead he again ruled out a full occupation, something the Obama administration has long opposed.
“Conducting another ground invasion of another Middle Eastern country is not in our interest,” Earnest said. “We’ve learned the lessons of the previous war in Iraq.”
“Risking their lives to go occupy another country, to put them in harm’s way, and to spend billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars to risk their lives, thinking that we can impose a military solution on another country is foolish,” he added.
