Former CIA chief Hayden hopes Assad will remain in power

AFP reports: The sectarian bloodbath in Syria is such a threat to regional security that a victory for Bashar al-Assad’s regime could be the best outcome to hope for, a former CIA chief said.

Washington condemned Assad’s conduct of the conflict, threatened air strikes after he was accused of targeting civilians with chemical weapons and has demanded he step down.

The United States is also supplying millions of dollars in “non-lethal” aid to some of the rebel groups fighting Assad’s rule.

But Michael Hayden, the retired US Air Force general who until 2009 was head of the Central Intelligence Agency, said a rebel win was not one of the three possible outcomes he foresees for the conflict.

“Option three is Assad wins,” Hayden told the annual Jamestown Foundation conference of terror experts.

“And I must tell you at the moment, as ugly as it sounds, I’m kind of trending toward option three as the best out of three very, very ugly possible outcomes,” he said.

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One thought on “Former CIA chief Hayden hopes Assad will remain in power

  1. Norman

    My, My, how they change their tunes. This country needs to get out of the business of making WAR. It seems that ever since Viet Nam, there’s just too many chiefs going in too many directions at once. For lack of a better understanding, it must be a “Boomer Generational” debacle or better known as a “Clusterfuck”

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