Syrian-Americans, while still pushing for the U.S to establish no-fly zone over the northern part of their home country, have given up hope that President Obama’s approach will stem the carnage in their homeland.
Now they’re saying Americans need to elect a new president before besieged moderate rebels and civilians will get relief from airstrikes.
President Obama conceded during a press conference Tuesday that, with help from the Russian military, Syrian President Bashar Assad will likely defeat the anti-government forces the U.S.-led coalition has supported in Syria that have held Aleppo, Syria’s most-populous city.
“These explicit signals of weakness and lack of American leadership, which is so characteristic of the Obama administration, will only encourage [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to achieve this goal,” said Omar Hossino, spokesman for the Syrian American Council.
“We’re talking about our allies, CIA-funded rebels, which are the target of the vast majority of Russian airstrikes. The issue is, the president made clear that he is not going to be taking real steps to ensure there are guarantees” to achieve the diplomatic process that he says is the only real solution to ending the five-year civil war in Syria, said Hossino, whose group is in touch with the rebels battling Assad and the Islamic State.
“Unfortunately, I don’t see any safe zone, or no-fly zone, being on the table anytime soon,” despite recent calls by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State to establish one or both, Hossino said.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday that he’s “aware” of Merkel’s remarks but “our position on no-fly zones remains the same.”
The Syrian American Council, Turkey and others have repeatedly said that a no-fly zone is the only way to end Assad’s assault on civilians and bring him to the negotiating table.
“This administration has for sure abandoned the cause of overthrowing Assad de facto by its policies,” Hossino added.
Even before Russian warplanes started flying over Syrian skies in support of Assad, Obama has repeatedly said that “safe zones” and no-fly zones are non-starters.
“And typically, after we’ve gone through a lot of planning and a lot of discussion, and really working it through, it is determined that it would be counterproductive to take those steps — in part because ISIL does not have planes,” Obama said Nov. 16, explaining his rationale for again rebuffing calls for a no-fly zone during a press conference in Turkey shortly after the Sunni terrorist group he refers to as ISIL attacked Parisians.
Nonetheless, the Syrian American Council led 11 heritage groups, including the Libyan American Public Affairs Council and the Lithuanian American Council, to write Obama, key lawmakers and all presidential candidates last week, urging them to support a no-fly zone.
“The United States must move immediately, and in partnership with the international community, to curb and reverse Russia’s aggressions in Eurasia and the Middle East,” the letter read. “U.S. leadership is necessary to achieve this end. If not us, then who? And if not now, then when?”
Even before the White House could respond to the letter, Hossino conceded that the “when” would be 2017, if ever.
The groups hope the next president will continue the anti-Islamic State airstrikes, but also intensify them and establish a no-fly zone, he said.
Hossino said he “absolutely” holds out no hope that Obama will budge. “I think the president made clear he is not going to be putting into place the proper military leverage to get Assad, to get Russia, to the negotiating table,” Hossino said.
He also said they have no real hope that Turkey or Saudi Arabia or any other member of the 66-nation coalition will enforce a no-fly zone without the U.S. establishing one.
“My only expectation of what’s going to go on is an escalation of violence,” Hossino said.
According to the Pentagon, the U.S. has launched nearly 3,200 sorties over Syria since Obama first authorized them in the summer of 2014. The nine other countries flying over Syria collectively have conducted only slightly more than 200.
