Looking for moderate extremists. Thats a good plan.
Only Obama could make Russia and Iran look like the good guys in this.
Seriously, we have destroyed our rationale for supporting any faction there against Assad. The reason for overthrowing Assad is to close Iran’s window to the Mediterranean and eliminate their only mid-east ally.
Thats important if we are going to put serious pressure on them.
But if we are going to help them get a nuke, which we are, then what is the point of attacking their ally? This is the basic incoherence of our policy. A war on Assad is a war on Iran by proxy. But we’re OK with them building a nuke.
If we had used our influence more directly, as we did in Afghanistan with the Northern Alliance and as we did with the “Surge”, we would be in a stronger moral position. As it is, our proxies are monsters and no one is prepared to go to war with Russia to protect them.
All it would take to make Syria a no-fly zone is one carrier battle group. No way a country with an economy smaller than Italy’s and a population smaller than Pakistan’s is going to take the USA on in a serious confrontation. But that’s not enough. We have to realize that the real enemy is Assad, not ISIS or AQ. He’s the enemy because he is Iran’s only real ally in the Arab Middle East. Get rid of Assad (and he’s a bloody butcher who deserves whatever fate awaits him) and Iran and their enforcer Russia are cut off and horribly embarrassed. Time to step up.