Posted on 08/22/2014 7:43:34 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The Islamic State, which metastasized from a group of militants seeking to overthrow the Syrian government into a marauding army gobbling up chunks of the Middle East, gained momentum early on from a calculated decision by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to go easy on it, according to people close to the regime.
Earlier in the three-year-old Syrian uprising, Mr. Assad decided to mostly avoid fighting the Islamic State to enable it to cannibalize the more secular rebel group supported by the West, the Free Syrian Army, said Izzat Shahbandar, an Assad ally and former Iraqi lawmaker who was Baghdad's liaison to Damascus. The goal, he said, was to force the world to choose between the regime and extremists.
"When the Syrian army is not fighting the Islamic State, this makes the group stronger," said Mr. Shahbandar, a close aide to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who said Mr. Assad described the strategy to him personally during a visit in May to Damascus. "And sometimes, the army gives them a safe path to allow the Islamic State to attack the FSA and seize their weapons."
"It's a strategy to eliminate the FSA and have the two main players face each other in Syria: Assad and the Islamic State," said Mr. Shahbandar. "And now [Damascus] is asking the world to help, and the world can't say no."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Obama’s policies aided them , as they have aided a whole host of trouble around the world
Actually, the United States aided the rise of the IS, by supporting jihadis in Syria and sanctioning Assad.
When the jihadis the U.S. was aiding started murdering each other, Assad just stood back and watched, like any sane leader would when his enemies were suicide bombing each other.
Seriously, when you’ve got a largely secular middle east dictator killing islamic terrorists, that’s like commies and nazis fighting — you want them to keep bleeding each other as long as possible. You certainly don’t want to try to hand the country over to the jihadis, like our administration has been doing.
Yup, along with Al Maliki in Iraq.
None of it really matters now that they have to be dealt with.
Are these the same anti-Assad forces obama wanted to arm?
When it comes to Islam though, it's a no brainer.
so true
Obama’s community organizing in all these Muslim countries seems to always have the same outcome: chaos and a strengthening of radicalism.
You can't fight all your enemies at the same time. Both Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were enemies of the United Kingdom. Britain only declared war on Germany.
Isnt it what Obama did during the Federal shut down and opening borders because we would not accept his terms?
McCain and Linda Graham were right in there with him.
McCain and Linda Graham were right in there with him.
He supported and allowed al Qaeda types to kill Americans in Iraq. That’s the type of cunning he is.
There are different factions fighting Assad. I realize not everyone accepts that, but it is true.
Is the picture I saw of McCain standing next to the late ISIS spokesman during his visit to Syria somehow explained by that? I assumed that the people he was photographed with are the people he wanted to support.
...of course if we hadn’t, effectively, STARTED THAT WAR, then ISIS would still be hiding in tents, rather than holding cities...but I guess we need to come up with something to try to deflect the TOTAL IDIOCY of our policy.
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