RED LINE: Obama’s Syria plan teams up American and Russian forces.
The Obama administration’s new proposal to Russia on Syria is more extensive than previously known. It would open the way for deep cooperation between U.S. and Russian military and intelligence agencies and coordinated air attacks by American and Russian planes on Syrian rebels deemed to be terrorists, according to the text of the proposal I obtained.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry plans to discuss the plan with top Russian officials in a visit to Moscow on Thursday. As I first reported last month, the administration is proposing joining with Russia in a ramped-up bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syria branch, which is also known as the Nusrah Front. What hasn’t been previously reported is that the United States is suggesting a new military command-and-control headquarters to coordinate the air campaign that would house U.S. and Russian military officers, intelligence officials and subject-matter experts.
Ordinarily I’d say that joining forces with Moscow might be a good way to combat ISIS and to reduce NATO-Russian tensions. But given the Obama Administration’s history of incompetent diplomacy with Russia — starting with Hillary Clinton’s comically failed “reset” button — you have to wonder not if but how Putin will play Obama and Kerry for suckers.