White House Close to Decision on Arming Syrian Rebels

[DFW]

8. I actually talked with Obama specifically about this a year ago

I met with him for about an hour and Syria was one of the subjects that came up. It was to be off the record until the election, but that was in November. I don't think I'm revealing any deep dark secret here:

Obama said that Syria was a nasty civil war where we had no friends among the combatants. He said that in 2010 there might have been a chance to avoid major carnage if the Russians had been willing to cooperate, but as they had too big a client in Assad, they weren't interested. He said Syria would play itself out, end badly with no real winner, and we would lose no matter what if we got involved.

I think he had a very realistic grasp of the situation then, and I can imagine that humanitarian questions about avoiding a wholesale slaughter are the only ones that might push him toward any involvement at all now. He certainly wants no part of it. He knows in advance, like the survivors of "The Seven Samurai," that if we do get involved, "we lose again. We always lose."