US supports ISIS in Syria while fighting it in Iraq

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/181339/how-war-terror-created-worlds-most-powerful-terror-group?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%20-%20Most%20Recent%20Content%20Feed%2020140821&newsletter=email_nation

How the War on Terror Created the World’s Most Powerful Terror Group

There are extraordinary elements in the present US policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the US is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The US would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas production facilities.

But US , Western European, Saudi, and Arab Gulf policy is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, which happens to be the policy of ISIS and other jihadis in Syria. If Assad goes, then ISIS will be the beneficiary, since it is either defeating or absorbing the rest of the Syrian armed opposition. There is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a “moderate” Syrian opposition being helped by the US , Qatar, Turkey, and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day. Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian border to the Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop this from happening is the Syrian army.

The reality of US policy is to support the government of Iraq, but not Syria, against ISIS. But one reason that group has been able to grow so strong in Iraq is that it can draw on its resources and fighters in Syria. Not everything that went wrong in Iraq was the fault of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as has now become the political and media consensus in the West. Iraqi politicians have been telling me for the last two years that foreign backing for the Sunni revolt in Syria would inevitably destabilize their country as well. This has now happened.

[eridani]

1. The US apparently thinks overthrowing Assad is more important than spiking ISIS n/t

[betterdemsonly]

2. I don't understand it

and it was Putin's resistance to funding the opposition that caused us to target him in the Ukraine. It is absolutely insane.

[CJCRANE]

3. I always read the comments on news sites

and it appears that a lot of people all over the world have noticed the absurdity of this policy.

John McCain and William Hague in particular are associated with it.

I now understand Obama's perceived reluctance to get involved in Libya. (I remember how he was accused of "leading from behind" and how France and other allies were gungho about interverntion and pressuring for action).

That was the first domino in the neocon gameplan that we see unfolding today.