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sad, the White House may soon sign off on a project to train and equip moderate forces.
• President Barack Obama is weighing sending a limited number of American troops to Jordan to be part of a regional training mission that would instruct carefully vetted members of the Free Syrian Army on tactics, including counterterrorism operations, administration officials said. They said Obama has not yet given final approval for the initiative and said there is still internal discussion about its merits and potential risks.
• The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss administration deliberations by name.
• In a speech at the U.S. Military Academy on Wednesday, Obama was expected to frame the situation in Syria as a counterterrorism challenge and indicate he will expand assistance to the opposition, although he was not expected to announce the new program, the officials said.
• However, the State Department, Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community, along with many in Congress who back the move, have concluded Assad will not budge without a change in the military situation on the ground, according to the officials. At the same time, there are growing fears about the threat posed by al-Qaida-linked and -inspired extremists fighting in Syria, the officials said.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the nation emerges from more than a decade of war, President Barack Obama is seeking to recast U.S. foreign policy as an endeavor aimed at building international consensus and avoiding unilateral overreach.
• Obama was to outline his approach Wednesday during a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The speech comes one day after the president put forward a blueprint for ending U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan by the time he leaves office.
• "I'm confident that if we carry out this approach, we can not only responsibly end our war in Afghanistan and achieve the objectives that took us to war in the first place, we'll also be able to begin a new chapter in the story of American leadership around the world," Obama said Tuesday during an appearance in the White House Rose Garden.
• Obama's efforts to pull the U.S. out of the lengthy and expensive conflicts in Iraq

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