"In 2003, the Damascus regime was panicked that then-US President George W. Bush, after his victory over Saddam Hussein, would have his troops continue into Syria to topple Assad as well. Thus, in the ensuing years, Syrian intelligence officials organized the transfer of thousands of radicals from Libya, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia to al-Qaida in Iraq. Ninety percent of the suicide attackers entered Iraq via the Syrian route. A strange relationship developed between Syrian generals, international jihadists and former Iraqi officers who had been loyal to Saddam -- a joint venture of deadly enemies, who met repeatedly to the west of Damascus."
"At the time, the primary aim was to make the lives of the Americans in Iraq hell. Ten years later, Bashar Assad had a different motive to breathe new life into the alliance: He wanted to sell himself to the world as the lesser of several evils. Islamist terror, the more gruesome the better, was too important to leave it up to the terrorists. The regime's relationship with Islamic State is -- just as it was to its predecessor a decade prior -- marked by a completely tactical pragmatism. Both sides are trying to use the other in the assumption that it will emerge as the stronger power, able to defeat the discrete collaborator of yesterday. Conversely, IS leaders had no problem receiving assistance from Assad's air force, despite all of the group's pledges to annihilate the apostate Shiites. Starting in January 2014, Syrian jets would regularly -- and exclusively -- bomb rebel positions and headquarters during battles between IS and rebel groups."
They’re not interested in negotiating with you. They’re interested in killing you. That’s all.
So Assad created ISIS so they would eventually overthrow him?
Aloof. Polite. Cajoling. Extremely attentive. Restrained. Dishonest. Inscrutable. Malicious.
I just thought those were words we shouldn’t use
about Hillary!.
OK, add them to the list.
Sounds like der.Bullshite.
Exactly.
I'd say it was our blowback. If we had made a deal with Assad, he might not have allowed jihadists to flow through Syria. Heck, we might even have sweetened the deal with a few hundred million a year in foreign aid. Instead, we kept on threatening to invade Syria.
Assad needs Islamic State’s help in destroying the rebels in Syria. Then afterwards, Assad will go after the Islamic State, this time the West will help him.