Obama, UN Envoy, See the End Nearing in Syria

US President Barack Obama apparently believes the end is near in Syria: a belief echoed by the United Nations envoy to the civil war-torn nation. Speaking to Pacific leaders in Lima, Peru, the president conceded that “once Russia and Iran made a decision to back Assad in a brutal air campaign … it was very hard to see a way in which even a trained and committed moderate opposition could hold its ground for long periods of time.” Obama had resisted pleas by rebel forces to back their efforts to topple the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad as the civil war played out for five years at a cost of more than 300,000 deaths and the displacement of millions others. At the same time in Damascus, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura got nowhere with a proposal that would have allowed rebel forces to administer some areas of Aleppo under their control. He expresses his belief that time is running out for the city. He told journalists that by Christmas the eastern portion of Aleppo will fall sending more than 200,000 more refugees toward Turkey in a mass “humanitarian catastrophe.”