I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
headed to Qatar on Friday on a mission to coordinate with allies on the next steps in Syria as the United States considers how far to go on assisting rebels.
Kerry flew out of Washington on the start of a 12-day trip that will also include meetings in emerging US partner India, an Asia regional conference in Brunei and his latest attempt to revive the Middle East grinding of the peace processor.
The top US diplomat was to meet Saturday with fellow foreign ministers of the so-called London 11 "Friends of Syria" group in Qatar, an oil-rich monarchy at the forefront of helping rebels battling
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
The United States has vowed to boost support for the rebels after declaring that Assad defied warnings not to use chemical weapons, but President Barack Obama
I inhaled. That was the point...
is cautious about becoming embroiled in an increasingly sectarian conflict that has claimed nearly 100,000 lives.
"The goal of the meeting is to be very concrete about the importance of every kind of assistance that's coming from the London 11 countries... being fully coordinated and going through only the Syrian opposition coalition," a US official said.
The official said that the Qatar meeting was critical as the Syrian National Coalition was looking at its leadership, amid concerns in Washington that fighters against Assad lack cohesion and direction.
"This is all in support of energizing, reenergizing, the Syrian opposition coalition leadership to work to select its leadership," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Qatar has also played a key role in reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan by playing host to a mission of the Taliban, with which the United States plans talks as it prepares to end more than a decade of war next year.
But the long-planned initiative has faced strident criticism from Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
, who objects to the mission's name of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan -- which may imply a government in exile from the hardline 1996-2001 Taliban regime.