We had a strong suspicion Denis McDonough and Valerie Jarrett selected General John Allen (retired) for the ISIS campaign, because the White House knew Allen could be leveraged and easily controlled. The embarrassing files on Allen (retained for such a purpose) allow the administration to strong-arm compliance.

President Obama appears to have a singular goal in Syria, remove Bashir Assad.

Combating Sunni ISIS is not an objective President Obama, or Recep Erdogan, would EVER support or be comfortable with.

(Wall Street Journal)  The president hasn’t yet given the green light for an attack on Islamic State militants in Syria, but the U.S. military campaign against the group there is being designed to allow President Barack Obama to exert a high degree of personal control–going so far as to require that the military obtain presidential signoff for strikes.
The requirements for the strikes will be far more stringent than those targeting Islamic State in Iraq, at least at first. U.S. officials say it is an attempt to limit the threat the U.S. could be dragged more deeply into the Syrian civil war.
After meeting with his top military advisers in Tampa yesterday, Mr. Obama insisted anew that U.S. ground forces won’t engage in combat in Iraq or Syria, despite suggestions by top military commanders that conditions could one day require that U.S. advisers and other military units play a limited front-line role (Here’s a look at why troops in Iraq don’t count as boots on the ground). Julian E. Barnes and Carol E. Lee report.   (read more)