Panetta: Russia should work with US to oust Assad

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says there is no future for Syria under President Bashar Assad, arguing the Russians should work with the United States to depose the leader. 

“So there is no question, he has exerted some strength here in terms of trying to retain control of Syria,” Panetta told “CBS This Morning.” “But the fact is that there is no future in Syria with Assad.”

Panetta has previously said the United States should be placing more pressure on the Assad regime.

{mosads}“He has killed his own people. He has committed atrocities. There is no way that a future Syria is going to continue under an Assad regime. That’s a reality,” Panetta continued.

Assad, entering the seventh year of a civil war, has been fighting various opposition groups ranging from moderate rebels to groups the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations since 2011.

Panetta called on the Russians, who have been supporting the Syrian regime politically and militarily since the start of the civil war, to work with the United States to oust Assad.

“And I think the Russians need to understand that and work with us to ultimately remove Assad from power. I don’t think we ought to give up on that,” he said.

President Trump last week ordered the U.S. military to launch Tomahawk missiles on the regime’s Shayrat airfield, which was believed to have been the launching point of a deadly chemical weapons attack on a town in Syria’s Idlib province.

Since the attack, senior Trump officials have signaled a change in the administration’s policy toward Assad. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday said there is no political solution in Syria that includes Assad.