US military offensive against ISIL nonexistent: Analyst

The ineffective US military campaign against terrorist groups in Syria is in great contrast with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s successful intervention in the Arab country, an American writer and academic says.  

 “The contrast between the positive impact of President Putin’s commitment to Syria and the absence of any major US offensive against ISIS [Daesh/ISIL] speaks for itself,” said James Petras, a professor emeritus of sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada.

Petras rejected the recent remarks by America’s top spy for describing Putin’s military campaign in Syria as an “impulsive” move that lacks careful strategic planning.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described Putin’s move in providing military support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as “opportunistic.”

As Director of National Intelligence, Clapper serves as principal advisor to the US president about intelligence matters related to national security. He also heads the seventeen-member US Intelligence Community, including the CIA.

“I think it’s typical of the CIA to engage in massive propaganda against a leader like Putin who has made the major effort to curtail and eliminate the terrorist threat in Syria,” Petras told Press TV on Friday.

“One can ask this representative of the major spy organization in the world what the United States and the CIA have been doing over the past four years to curtail ISIS and the other Daeshi organizations,” he noted.

Moscow’s commitment to the Syrian government runs counter to current US policy, which calls for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

US officials have previously called Russia's airstrikes a "strategic blunder," with President Barack Obama saying earlier this month that Russia was going to face an inevitable "quagmire" in the Arab country.

Putin has responded to US claims by lambasting the Obama administration’s approach in Syria.

The Russian leader has slammed the White House for staging “a double game” in Syria by “announcing the fight against terrorists” on the one hand and using some others “to position pawns.”