Readers React: Fixing Syria and Iraq is a job for the next president

To the editor: President Obama’s Syria policy is an unfortunate example of his now-characteristic indecisiveness. He’s half in and half out. Air support, yes; ground troops, no. (“A conspicuous failure of U.S. foreign policy in Syria,” Op-Ed, Jan. 24)

Islamic State cannot conquer Iraq and Syria as long as our air support is there to stop it. On the other hand, it is now clear that winning the war against Islamic State cannot be done without U.S. ground forces. The result is stasis, which apparently is fine with Obama.

Having achieved a static situation, Obama can turn his attention to domestic issues, his overriding concern. It will be up to the next president to clean up the Iraq and Syria mess that Obama will have left unresolved.

Carl Moore, Lomita

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To the editor: McManus seems to be in agreement with former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford when he says: “We have put very little skin in the game. The Russians and Iranians have put a lot of skin in the game.”

He should tell us what is meant by “skin in the game.” Is that supposed to mean boots on the ground? I don’t think so.

McManus says, “The lesson of our misadventure in Syria may be this: A risk-averse foreign policy can keep you out of ground wars — but it can also keep other goals out of reach too.” Please, tell us how many American boots we have to sacrifice to win this civil war in Syria.

Benny Wasserman, La Palma

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