If you watched Secretary of State John Kerry’s appearances before House and Senate committees this week, you may recall that he downplayed the number of radical Islamists fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Kerry estimated that up to a quarter of rebels are tied to extremist groups — including the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist group, al-Nusra Front, which is said to be the most well-organized of the anti-Assad faction. But Kerry tried to assure members that the moderate rebels are growing stronger.
But Reuters reported yesterday that Kerry’s assessment of Syrian rebels is off base, pointing to intelligence sources inside the United States government and elsewhere who dispute the notion presented by the Obama Administration (emphasis added):
Top U.S. intelligence and military officials have recently offered bleak public evaluations of the relative strengths of moderate and religious extremist Syrian rebels.In an August 19 letter to Representative Eliot Engel, obtained by Reuters, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, warned: “Syria is not about choosing between two sides but rather about choosing one among many sides.“It is my belief that the side we choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the balance shifts in their favor,” Dempsey wrote. “Today they are not.”A European security official with experience in the region said that extremist rebel factions were so strong and well-organized in the north and west of Syria that they were setting up their own public services and trying to create an Islamic ministate along the Iraqi border.By contrast, the official said, more moderate rebel factions predominate in the east of Syria and along its southern border with Jordan but have largely devolved into “gangs” whose leaders are more interested in operating local rackets and enriching themselves than in forming a larger alliance that could more effectively oppose Assad’s government.
There are also stories that the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the most prominent moderate faction of the anti-Assad forces, is fractured and increasingly working with Islamists, which Foreign Policy calls a “growing” contingent. They also note that Islamists “would no longer respect demands by outside powers that they not attempt to take over government-controlled chemical weapons sites.”
The New York Times has reported in specific detail on the brutality of Syrian rebels fighting against Assad. The Associated Press also recounted an attack by rebels against Maaloula, a predominately Christian village located northeast of Damascus.
There isn’t anyone who denies that Assad is a ruthless dictator responsible for much pain and suffering in Syria. But the Obama Administration is making a terrible decision by getting in bed with the Syrian opposition. It’s been said before by others, but it bears repeated — there are no good guys here, including the Islamists working toward their goal of turning Syria into a theocratic state who will benefit from our intervention.
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