Replies

1. The authors are leaving too much out.
2. It is literally the destabilization of Syria that helped ISIS grow and get stronger. Minus the “rebellion” in Syria ISIS would not have gained the strength it did in Syria. The rebellion was sold, all over the Arab-Sunni Middle East as a rightful cause for a faithful Sunni Muslim man to join. Our wonderful so called “friends” did that.
2. That “rebellion” grew out of a longer than ten year (began during GWBush admin) regime change agenda to create such a “rebellion” inside Syria; creating and employing “international” NGOs, paid by U.S. state dept and cia funds and funds from Arab-Sunni “friends” to front for “Syrians in exile” and as conduit for U.S. and middle east funds to help grow the “opposition” movement in Syria.
3. Our so-called “friends” created most of the links in Syria and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was and remains at the core of them, regardless of “moderate” fellow travelers and public faces for western consumption.
4. Syria was - in terms of U.S. policy - a redo of the mistakes we made in Afghanistan in the 1980s - thinking it was our agenda when our friends had their own agenda which was Sunni-Islamist.
5. The U.S. was not going to put boots on the ground and take charge in Syria (to further our regime change agenda there) under any president. Air support maybe but not U.S. troops.
6. The U.S. was NEVER going to be in control of the political results of a “Syrian opposition victory”. Who are its Middle East backers? Sunni fundamentalist dictators (kings & emirs). Who has always been at the opposition’s core? The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Is there any grounds to expect a “secular” Syrian democracy to come out of a “Syrian opposition” victory? No. (at this time Islam is not the state religion of Syria - there is none; everyone has religious freedom and the leader of Syria is not required to be Muslim) (no wonder Assad is hated by our so called “friends”.)
7. What was the best thing Obama could have done? HALTED the clandestine state dept, cia, middle east “friends” regime change agenda against Assad (they used the “arab spring” as an excuse for the timing of launching the “opposition movement” publicly).
8. Barring that, what would things like air support have done in Syria? First, it would have made Assad more desperate (yes, he may have used more chemical weapons), and it would have greatly increased support for him from Russia and Iran, and rather than create an opposition victory it would have quickened the pace of creating a destabilized Syria and sooner advances for ISIS.
9. Yes, ISIS growth is an off-shoot of circumstances in Syria. BUT those circumstances owe a good deal from our own regime change agenda against Assad, and how all along it was a regime change agenda our so-called “friends” had against him NOT because he was a dictator - like them, but because he was not a Sunni Islamist dictator like them.