At this point, it’s abundantly clear that the US is on the wrong side in the Mid-East.
Washington has always resorted to covert operations and support for unsavory characters on the way to bringing about regime change in countries whose governments aren’t deemed conducive to American interests. That’s nothing new.
Usually, however, there’s at least a semi-plausible argument to be made for why Washington feels the need to support one side over the other.
In Syria, there’s no such argument.
The idea that the Russians and Iranians represent a bigger to the world than ISIS doesn’t even make sense to the most clueless members of the American electorate and indeed, the very idea Putin that is more dangerous than Baghdadi isn’t consistent with Washington’s contention that Islamic State represents the greatest threat to mankind since the Reich. Furthermore, more and more Westerners are starting to understand that the Saudis and their brand of puritanical Islam are really no different from ISIS - the only real distinction between the two is in how many barrels of oil they pump each day. The implication of that rather sobering assessment is that perhaps Washington should be supporting Tehran rather than Riyadh when it comes to picking a Mid-East power broker ally.
And then there’s Turkey, where NATO stood aside and watched as Erdogan started a civil war in order to nullify a democratic election outcome. Now, he’s shooting down Russian planes and trafficking ISIS crude.
In short: this makes absolutely no sense. The US should be aligned with Russia and Iran in Syria, not with Turkey, not with Saudi Arabia, not with Qatar (all of whom fund Sunni extremism) and most certainly not with the FSA, al-Nusra, and/or ISIS.
Well, thankfully, US lawmakers are beginning to wake up to what’s going on as evidenced by Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign to stop what she calls the “illegal war” against Assad. In the latest example of lawmaker revolt against Washington’s Syria strategy, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats recently issued a statement on everything the US is doing wrong. It’s presented below without further comment.
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