Obama rules out intervention to thwart Syria-Hizballah’s decisive Aleppo victory

DEBKAfile Special Report June 13, 2013, 10:39 PM (IDT)

Tags:  Barack Obama,  Syrian war,  Aleppo,  no-fly zone,

Aleppo in the balance

The eagerly-awaited White House statement on the decision reached in President Barack Obama’s special consultation on Syria with his national security aides was seen by debkafile’s Washington sources as his final rejection of all the proposals for intervention put before him. The consultation was necessitated by the need for drastic action to thwart the Syrian-Hizballah offensive to capture Aleppo, Syrian’s biggest city.

Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Thursday, June 13: "The president and every member of his national security team are greatly concerned by the terrible situation… and the worsening situation in Syria. As terrible as the situation is in Syria, he has to make decisions when it comes to policy toward Syria that are in the best interests of the United States.”

What Carney conveyed on behalf of the president was that while stopping the battle for Aleppo was crucially important in terms of the Syrian war, intervention was not in the interests of the United States.

Our sources learn that the US president even turned down a plan for a limited no-fly zone being imposed over the northwest city of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, the largest piece of territory still remaining in rebel hands. This plan entailed no more than 20 US and Turkish fighter bombers for preventing the Syrian air force from extending air support to the decisive Aleppo offensive launched by the Syrian army Monday as Operation Northern Storm.

Our military sources report that the Syrian and Hizballah armies need between one to two months to wrest from rebel hands the northwest town of Aleppo and Idlib province which abuts the Turkish border. While their conquest of Al Qusayr was a major regional victory, the fall of Aleppo and Idlib would make Bashar Assad the winner of the 28-month Syrian civil war, just when its death toll nears 100,000 according to official figures.