So you are hopelessly confused about the Middle East, especially Syria, where a civil war is being waged between … who the hell knows?
Well, yours truly has waded through the morass and has come up with a scorecard that will hopefully clarify things.
So, big picture, fighting on one side is the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Iran, a Shiite Islamic state. Fighting against them is the Sunni Islamic State, or ISIS.
Also involved are the United States and Russia, although here things get complicated. We in the United States hate al-Assad, a brutal dictator who has murdered thousands of his people, and has even defied (with impunity) President Obama’s “redline” against using chemical weapons on his people. We also hate his ally, Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, which supports Assad with Shiite militias and military equipment.
Unfortunately, we also hate their enemy, ISIS, which is also a terrorist organization, and one worse even than al Qaeda. Thus both sides are our enemies, so we are currently allied with a Syrian Kurdish force called YPG, which also hates both Assad and ISIS. Unfortunately, according to our NATO ally Turkey, which borders Syria and has a hand in this war, YPG also has links with Islamic terrorists. Meanwhile, on both sides there are several independent rebel groups of seemingly indeterminate origin or affiliation, although one we currently support is the Southern Front, a group of Syrian fighters dedicated to overthrowing Assad, destroying ISIS and restoring order to Syria. But this could all change tomorrow.
Then there’s Russia, which, to the Obama administration’s delight, announced it was entering the war to fight our enemy ISIS, and then, to the Obama administration’s dismay, immediately began bombing rebel forces that are fighting ISIS. Among those Russian-bombed rebel forces is the aforementioned U.S.-backed Southern Front. This has made the Obama administration very angry with Russia, but that too could change tomorrow.
The other nations in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, are Sunni nations, and, because the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam have hated each other for eons, Saudi Arabia is supporting the Sunni-based ISIS, our enemy, against the Shiite Iranian forces aiding Assad, which are also our enemy. Saudi Arabia is our chief Arab ally in the Middle East, so its helping our enemy ISIS has probably disappointed the Obama administration, although it has not publicly complained, perhaps because aiding ISIS also weakens Iran and Assad.
What the Obama administration has done publicly, however, is brazenly attempt to fundamentally change the momentum of this civil war by sending 50 — that’s 50 — soldiers of the Special Operations Forces to Syria. Although that too could change.
Does that clarify things?
