find out what you actually want to achieve, this case the death of isis, and make the deal to make that happen. if russia can bring together iran and assad from the one side, and the u.s. can bring together and keep under control the sunni states from the other side, we could tighten the nice on isis and bring those guys down. gordon adams and steve walt wrote this for the new york times today. one of the questions was, of course, what about overreach with the two of us in there together? there s always that possibility. there is a risk of overreach, but i thing there s much more of an overreach when you have a muddled strategy, frankly what the u.s. has had for four years. as you and i talked about many times, at the end of the day, right, if you want isis gone, make the deal with assad. it s a deal with the devil but that s sometimes what you have to do in the real world, and, you know, at the end of the day this is where we re down to. if we continue doing half measures we ve
let s think of syria and isis and russia in a whole new way. is what we re doing now working in syria? remember the strategy, right? back the moderate syrian rebels, stir in some air support, we ll degrade and destroy isis. remember? that was never going to work. so let s think of it another way. like this. america s best hope for beating the islamic state is to team up with russia. the united states side by side with the russians get rid of isis and restore stability. that s what we should do. according to the authors of an op-ped today in the new york times newspaper. it s from two foreign affairs professors. one from american university, the other from harvard. here s what they claim. u.s. policy toward syria has so far been based on a hope and a prayer, and they write, and i quote, the united states should have two goals in syria. first, bring order to those parts o tpart s of the country that the islamic state does not control, and second, strive to build a coalition