Situation report: “Iraq first” replaced by momentum in Syria

Paul McLeary and Adam Rawnsley write for Foreign Policy:

Same war, new focus. For now. The “Iraq first” model of fighting the Islamic State appears, for the moment, to be a thing of the past. With Russia shipping dozens of fighter planes, helicopters, drones, and tanks to Syria, and a serious rethinking of the U.S.-led train and equip program for Syrian rebels being hashed out at the White House and in the Pentagon, the fight there has taken hold of the headlines.

Building on the original scoop by FP’s Dan De Luce earlier this month that Washington is weighing embedding U.S.-trained Syrian rebels with larger local forces, the Washington Post’s Missy Ryan and Greg Jaffe reportedMonday that White House officials are working on a plan to provide weapons “to a wider array of rebel groups in Syria and relaxing vetting standards, effectively deepening America’s involvement in the ongoing civil war.”