In a daily news conference on Friday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer stated plainly that the United States “needs to accept” the political realities on the ground in Syria, namely, that Bashar al-Assad is the sovereign country’s president and leader. Rather, the US must concentrate on ousting Daesh from the region, Spicer added.
The Trump White House blamed the previous administration run by Barack Obama for missing out on the chance to remove Assad from power when that was still a viable strategy.
On Thursday, America’s top diplomatic corps made a dramatic turn from previous US foreign policy, which aimed to get rid of Assad. The new pronouncements effectively show that the Obama administration’s policy in Syria failed.
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, explicated that Washington’s priorities will no longer be to “sit there and focus on getting Assad out.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meanwhile, commented that the “longer term” political viability of Assad, whose country has been flocked by terrorists, militia groups, and standing armies globally since 2011, will be determined by the Syrian people.