Why doesn’t Obama seem to listen to Syria experts? (Shadi Hamid, Brookings)

U.S. policy toward Syria is a fascinating, if depressing, case study. Many of my friends and colleagues who work on Syria—nearly all of them, in fact—have been baffled by President Obama’s approach to the Syrian conflict. The administration’s apparent resistance to rethinking its policies, despite rapidly changing events on the ground, sparks a number of challenging questions, particularly for someone like me who works at a think tank: When the basic thrust of policy seems immovable, irrespective of events on the ground, how should researchers respond? Should influencing policy be the animating objective of policy research? Who exactly should our work be directed to?

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2016/02/10-obama-syria-policy-experts-hamid