The clear priority for the US in Syria over the past few years has always been defeating ISIS.
"I don't see any big daylight between what Tillerson said and what Obama's administration has been doing," Robert Ford, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and Yale University who was the US ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, told Business Insider.
Ford noted that for the last two and a half years of US involvement in Syria, "it's been abundantly clear that the Islamic State is the heavy priority and not the Assad government."
Many Syria experts say this is misguided because ISIS' presence in Syria is fostered by Assad's continued hold on power.
"The key problems we face center on the effects of Assad regime mass homicide: a recruiting bonanza for Islamist extremists, spillover effects that embolden Russia and hurt allies, and the signature humanitarian abomination (to date) of the 21st century," Fred Hof, a former special adviser for transition in Syria under Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, told Business Insider in an email.
"This is why a strategy that separates Assad and ISIS would be doomed to failure," he added. "Assad and ISIS are joined at the hip."
Pamela Engel from Business Insider
"I don't see any big daylight between what Tillerson said and what Obama's administration has been doing," Robert Ford, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and Yale University who was the US ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, told Business Insider.
Ford noted that for the last two and a half years of US involvement in Syria, "it's been abundantly clear that the Islamic State is the heavy priority and not the Assad government."
Many Syria experts say this is misguided because ISIS' presence in Syria is fostered by Assad's continued hold on power.
"The key problems we face center on the effects of Assad regime mass homicide: a recruiting bonanza for Islamist extremists, spillover effects that embolden Russia and hurt allies, and the signature humanitarian abomination (to date) of the 21st century," Fred Hof, a former special adviser for transition in Syria under Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, told Business Insider in an email.
"This is why a strategy that separates Assad and ISIS would be doomed to failure," he added. "Assad and ISIS are joined at the hip."
Pamela Engel from Business Insider
