Politics Overrule Staff Recomendations
Even last Summer was pretty late to get into this. This should help to make relations with the next regime quite rosy. From today's NYT.
"WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told Congress on Thursday that the Pentagon had supported a plan to arm Syrian rebels that was developed last year by David H. Petraeus, the C.I.A. director at the time, and backed by Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was then serving as Secretary of State.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were asked by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, if they had supported the recommendation that weapons be provided to the Syrian resistance.
“We did,” Mr. Panetta said.
“You did support that” Mr. McCain asked again.
“We did,” General Dempsey added.
The White House, however, was worried about the risks of getting more deeply involved in the crisis in Syria. And with President Obama in the midst of a re-election bid, the White House rebuffed the plan, rejecting the advice of most of the key members of Mr. Obama’s national security team.
The New York Times reported in its Sunday editions that as the fighting in Syria raged last summer, Mr. Petraeus developed the plan, which Mrs. Clinton supported and that called for vetting rebels and training fighters who would be supplied with weapons.
His proposal offered the potential reward of creating Syrian allies with whom the United States might work, during the conflict and after President Bashar al-Assad’s eventual removal. "