"I do not understand why [Obama's] decided to jump into a war that [is] being won right now by the Syrian army and its allies, including Russia," Hersh said. "I can just speculate that our anti-Putin, anti-Russian instinct in America continues apace. That's all."
The journalist further praised Moscow's counterterrorism campaign in Syria. "The real winner in the last year or so of the war there has been the Russians. And the Russians – the bombing was much more effective," he noted.
However, Barack Obama's decision to increase the US military presence in Syria could adversely affect the Geneva peace process, von Sponeck noted, saying that the move is part of a "series of experiments" that Washington has conducted in the war-torn country and neighboring Iraq.
These remarks came following Obama's Monday announcement that Washington would "deploy up to 250 additional US personnel in Syria including special forces." The move is ostensibly aimed at helping local forces to tackle Daesh, but von Sponeck offered a different explanation.
Obama "is entering his last six months and he wants to leave a legacy that shows some sign of success," he explained.
If so, these experiments will hardly help to achieve this goal, but could instead contribute to ruining a country plagued by a foreign-sponsored insurgency for more than five years.
"The Americans are never short of an experiment, never short of trying something new," von Sponeck asserted. Washington "is jumping from one laboratory test to another, and in the meantime [Syria] continues to go further towards a destroyed nation."
