sought to topple

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hello, at an internet portal, I’ve run across an expression which I have a doubt on.

Here is the link

awdnews.com/top-news/russian … -s-bedroom

This is the paragraph

"Since 2011, Mr. Obama sought to topple the democratically-elected president of Syria, for more than four years they fabricated stories to tarnish the Syrian government, all these years Obama and his henchmen—namely Turkey’s Erdoğan — tried to destabilize the region which left hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians killed or displaced”, RIA Novosti quoted General Gerasimov as saying.

I wonder if “sought to topple” is grammatically correct here.

I also wonder if there a present perfect continuous tense should have been used,

“Since 2011, Mr. Obama has been seeking the way to topple the democratically-elected president of Syria…”

Thanks

2

Since 2011 Obama has sought to topple …
Since 2011 Obama has been seeking to topple …
During the last four years Obama sought to topple …