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To stop ISIS in Syria, bomb Assad’s forces

Peter Juul argues that the Obama administration's plan to eliminate ISIS must also address Assad.

The Obama administration’s strategy to confront ISIS is incomplete.

President Obama has gotten congressional approval for increased assistance to the Syrian opposition – what he called “the best counterweight to extremists.” And the U.S.-led coalition has hit ISIS strongholds in Syria, as well as the Islamist militant group’s front-line forces in Iraq. But what remains unclear is how the administration’s anti-ISIS plan deals with Syria’s civil war.

The president argues that a political solution remains the only way to “solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.” But the administration hasn’t made clear how it intends to obtain this political solution with the regime of Bashar al-Assad increasingly confident of its military position.

The above excerpt was originally published in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Peter Juul

Former Senior Policy Analyst