In line with the standard fictional mainstream media narrative that the troubles in Syria are a consequence of US inaction, Reuters reports the following:
Obama has been reluctant to intervene in Syria since the anti-government revolt there erupted in March 2011.
He turned down an earlier proposal in summer 2012, backed by virtually all his top security advisers, to arm moderate Syrian rebels. And after Assad crossed Obama’s “red line” and used chemical weapons, the U.S. president opted against a military response, instead negotiating a deal with Russia to remove Syrian stockpiles of advanced chemical arms.
Actually, the US lost little time lending its support to the armed rebels by funneling arms to them from Saudi Arabia and Qatar in furtherance of a policy of regime change, with most of the arms winding up in the hands of “Islamic” extremists, as no less respectable a source than the New York Times reported in the fall of 2012.
It’s true that Obama turned down a proposal to arm the rebels directly in 2012. What Reuters leaves out is that a year later, the US did begin directly arming them, as the mainstream media informed us in June 2013. Down the memory hole.
Reuters reports as fact that the Assad regime “used chemical weapons” when in fact the US’s claims that it did so fell apart under scrutiny.
Oh, and Obama didn’t opt against a military response. He was quite intent on bombing Syria until John Kerry screwed that plan up by saying off-the-cuff that Syria could prevent a US bombing by agreeing to hand over its chemical weapons to international inspectors, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to show global leadership by calling on Assad to comply, which he did. It was Putin who acted on his own to prevent the US from bombing Syria, not a decision by Obama to stay out of it.
