Crowing about having successfully gotten Iran uninvited from the Geneva 2 peace talks in Montreaux this week, US State Department officials say the goal is now to get the talks to “focus on the task at hand,” which they said was imposing a political transition that would oust President Assad.

 

Early last week, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian FM Sergey Lavrov were talking about partial ceasefires and serious measures to end fighting on the ground, but after the Assad government endorsed those plans, the US changed starkly, and now says any attempt to talk about ceasefires is an attempt to “distract” from the goal of removing Assad from power.

The whole US objection to Iran even being involved in the talks was because they hadn’t officially endorsed ousting Assad yet, which leaves open the question of why the US is allowing either Assad or the Russians to attend.