More depressing news out of Syria. A tense, two-week cease fire agreement was marked with violations on both sides, a US strike that killed 62 Syrian soldiers and a Russian airstrike that hit a U.N. aid convoy. The main goal of the agreement was to allow aid into Aleppo – as of now it appears that no aid ever made it to the people of Syria’s largest city.
With the agreement deteriorated, Assad wasted no time bombing his own citizens. An airstrike on Friday killed at least 27 citizens. Samantha Power has called Assad and his government’s actions “barbaric.”
I was at the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) last weekend and listened to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter give an update on our operations in Syria. The senators pressed him for a solution that would end the conflict and he provided a grim outlook. Essentially, he said that an agreement between Russia and U.S. that allows for a political transition is the only practical thing that could end the fighting. Given that Assad is in no position to relinquish power and we have not been able to reach any sort of stable agreement with Russia, we will be seeing carnage like this weekend for the foreseeable future.