https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/middleeast/pentagon-program-islamic-state-syria.html?_r=0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fworld%2fnational-security%2fplans-to-send-heavier-weapons-to-cia-backed-rebels-in-syria-stall-amid-white-house-skepticism%2f2016%2f10%2f23%2ff166ddac-96ee-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html%3f

https://pulsemedia.org/2015/12/26/no-need-for-conspiracy-us-seeks-regime-preservation-in-syria/

https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE129.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/world/middleeast/israeli-helped-inspire-us-russia-weapons-deal-with-assad-memoir-says.html?_r=0

Workshop participants felt that prolonged conflict was the best descriptor for the situation in Syria as of December 2013, but momentum seemed to be leaning toward regime victory.
Negotiated settlement was deemed the least likely of the possible scenarios.
Regime collapse, while not considered a likely outcome, was perceived to be the worst possible outcome for U.S. strategic interests.

Obama's refusal to directly arm or train Syrian rebels prior to 2013, and his rejection of a 2012 outline for "CIA intervention in Syria" suggested by then-CIA Director David Petraeus was motivated by his own belief that past instances of the CIA supporting insurgencies rarely "worked out well." The program he ultimately approved was designed not to give the rebels enough support to achieve victory, but rather to engineer a stalemate that would encourage a negotiated resolution of the Syrian Civil War—which U.S. officials envisioned as including the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The CIA trained 10,000 rebels "in Jordan and Turkey" at facilities run with the cooperation of the Jordanian and Turkish governments, but strict prohibitions were placed on the U.S. or its allies introducing "certain classes of weapons" (such as MANPADs) into the conflict due to fears they could be captured by terrorists—this despite the fact that all CIA-supported rebels are "vetted" for possible extremist ties.

thats just David Petraeus

contradicts what McCain said

David Pateraus and the assessment of the RAND institute

already granted David Petraeus

Also the position of Seymour Hersh

Seymour Hersh and RAND are not part of the US Gov

these are just expert opinions

Rand is strongly linked to the US government

They are advisors to the US gov

not part of it

They advice policy decisions and are used as basis for formulating policy

most experts on Syria back then was of the view that Assad was going to fall

They concluded that the collapse of Assad was against US strategic interests

David Pateraus is the only insider that said the US was of the view that fall of Assad is not desired by US, and that is contradicted by McCain

Also the statements of Obama are rhetorical in nature

Not the US intelligence assessment of more confidential nature

what inside

DP is the only one who has come out and said this

What

until today

What

David Patreaus and the assessment of the US intelligence community

the assessment of the US intelligence community who

IC said that Assad fall is undesirable and that the US is not support overthrow/step down of Assad?

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

thats from IC?

offcially from IC?

sessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey.’ The assessment was bleak: there was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists.

DIA said this when?

2013 I believe

where sis the assessment

?

@Neuron Cortex hey

Hey, what is going on