FOREIGN POLICY/IRAQ/NATIONAL SECURITY/SYRIA: “To hear the Pentagon tell it, the United States still has no intention of getting involved in Syria’s six-year civil war; the American presence there is solely to help its allies defeat the Islamic State.
But a recent spate of incidents have raised alarm from diplomats and national security officials that the United States may be inadvertently sliding into a far bigger role in the Syrian civil war than it intended.
‘We don’t seek conflict with anyone other than ISIS,’ Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Wednesday [6-21-17], using an acronym for the militant Sunni extremist group that is rooted in Syria and Iraq.
This month alone, the United States has shot down a Syrian warplane, come close to shooting another and downed two Iranian-made drones that were nearing American-backed troops on the ground.”
-Helene Cooper, “Critics Say U.S. Is ‘Sleepwalking’ Into Wider Role in Syria,” The New York Times online, June 22, 2017