What is going on in Syria?

Thank Obama for this Mess.

By Chuck Warren

Last week, anti-regime forces in Syria caught everyone by surprise. They moved into Aleppo, forcing out Bashar al-Assad’s government forces, and are currently in control of the city. Twelve years ago, when the city first became contested in the middle of the civil war, this would have been happy news. Today, it isn’t.

When the Syrian Civil War first broke out, most of the opposition was secular, but there were also Islamists. The secular forces were hopeful that, with American help, they could overthrow Assad’s regime. The Islamists kept telling them that Americans would never come to help them because Americans don’t care about Muslims.

They were right. Obama never tried to help. Assad, Russia, and Iran exploited this American vacuum. They claimed that they were fighting Islamist terrorists, but they were mainly attacking the secular forces.

They had the right idea. They knew that if they got rid of the secular opposition, Americans would never try to overthrow Assad, as the alternative would have been the Islamists.

In 2016, Assad’s forces, helped by Iran and Russia, finally won the Battle of Aleppo and seized the city while mostly attacking secular forces.

The secular anti-Assad forces who survived ended up joining the Islamists for a few simple reasons.

First, they did not believe the Islamists at first that “Americans don’t care about Muslims.” But Assad killed half a million Syrian Muslims, using chemical weapons against ordinary civilians, and Obama did nothing. So they came to believe that Americans really don’t care about Muslims.

Second, nobody was helping the secular forces. The Islamists had their own advantages. They had combat experience and guns because they had fought during the insurgency in Iraq. Countries like Turkey and Qatar were helping the Islamists with money and guns, but nobody was helping the secular forces.

Last, if you were fighting with the secular forces, Assad, Russia, and Iran would attack you. But if you were fighting with the Islamists, they’d let you be.

For all these reasons, the secular forces eventually vanished, and all that is left now is Assad, who has killed half a million innocent Syrians, on the one hand, and Islamists on the other.

Worse, Assad is supported by Russia and Iran, and the Islamists are friends with Turkey and Russia. There’s no good guy left for us to help, exactly like Assad wanted. The only good guys left are the Kurds, who are too small to change anything. But also, Assad, Turkey, and Islamists all hate them. The only thing we can do is ensure that our Kurdish friends are safe from both sides.

This is entirely Obama’s mess. There was bipartisan support to help the secular Syrians when the civil war first started. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and many other Republicans were calling for it. Within Obama’s own administration, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and David Petraeus presented a plan to help Syrians overthrow Assad.

At this point, neither Iran nor Russia had entered the conflict. They were worried that America was going to intervene and didn’t want to cross us. But Obama refused to help. So Iran finally sent its military to Syria. Then, in 2015, Russia did the same. And guess what, Obama finally sent the U.S. military to Syria too—to ally with Iran and Russia and Assad against the Islamist State!

The secular forces were begging Obama to help them. If they had succeeded, they would have become a friend of America. But by refusing to help them, Obama drove them into the Islamists’ hands. Worse, he did all this so America would not have to get involved, only to send the U.S. military to Syria to get involved. We ended up with the worst of all worlds after Obama rejected everyone's counsel.

This was typical Obama. He was always sure that he was a genius who knew better than everyone, no matter how many times he was proven wrong. And because of this, he set the stage for most of the problems in the world today. (Stay tuned for more on this.)

If you are wondering whom you should root for in Syria, that’s because there is nobody to root for. If the civil war reignites, we will have to decide whether we want Syria controlled by Iran and Russia or controlled by Turkey that is increasingly becoming a foe of the United States and our allies. Thanks, Obama!

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.