Living In His Own Private Idaho

If President Obama's recently restated claim that arming the Syrian rebels--mere farmers and doctors (he said)--a couple years ago was a fantasy alternative to the administration's actual actions that led to the rise of ISIL and their offensive into Iraq and destabilization of Lebanon, why did President Obama say that Assad had to go when the revolt got going?

Are we to believe that President Obama advocated an impossibility by putting the prestige of the United States on the line for an objective that the opposition could not reach?

Or is it more likely that President Obama said Assad had to go because our president assumed that those farmer and doctor rebels would win, and it would be an easy and cheap trophy to claim by getting in front of that parade with nothing but words?

But now the president says that it is a fantasy to think the rebels could have won with our help.

Face it, the president lives in the District of Fantasy.

UPDATE: Even if President Obama is right that the non-jihadi rebels were "just" farmers and doctors (it was not true given the desertions from the Syrian army) who had no chance of beating Assad's security forces, if our president had more knowledge of American history (or if any of his staff did) he might have remembered that mere farmers and shopkeepers beat the British army and their professional mercenaries in our Revolution.

And he might even want to remember that we needed the help of a great power (France) for weapons, supplies, and even troops and ships to finally defeat the British.