Former CIA operative: Barack Obama rejected 50 plots to oust Syrian leader Bashar Assad

Richard Spence, The Telegraph

President Obama vetoed 50 plans put to him by the CIA to engineer the downfall of the  Assad regime in Syria, according to a former operative working on the project.

According to a memoir he is publishing Tuesday, Douglas Laux was part of a team given the task of finding ways to put into effect Obama’s assertion in August 2011 that “the time had come for President Assad to step aside”.

The CIA, under then-leader David Petraeus, ended up running a scheme to arm rebels from the “non-jihadist” Free Syrian Army — but it never reached a scale that outweighed regime support from Iran and the Lebanese militia Hizbollah.

Laux now says that was because more elaborate schemes drawn up and backed not only by former General Petraeus, but by Hillary Clinton when secretary of state, and defence secretary Leon Panetta were all rejected by Obama.

“My ops plan laid them out in black and white. But political leadership? hadn’t given us the go-ahead to implement a single one.” Obama has been accused of vacillating on Syria since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, and encouraging rebels by implying they had U.S. support but failing to intervene decisively.

One element of the various plans was to pay regime associates of Assad to push him out.

However, full details are not given in the book, which had to be heavily vetted by the CIA prior to publication, a standard rule for former officers.

After his plans for Syria were rejected, he recommended that the CIA pull out altogether, but that idea was also turned down.

A CIA spokesman said: “Sadly, Laux’s career at CIA did not work out. We hope that someday, maybe with age and greater maturity, he will have better perspective on his time here.” However, the CIA has not disputed the facts.