Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. John McCain demanded that the US arm and train “moderate rebels” to take down Bashir Assad. When President Obama worked in his all-things-to-all-people strategy he consented to training in Jordan and Turkey.
Jack Murphy (here through Sic Semper Tyrannis) reports that Special Forces are sabotaging these training programs because they have sussed out that they are training jihadis and that the CIA (Brennan?) is driving this initiative (on behalf of the Saudis?).
So now we are getting some clarification about what most of us saw as a contradiction long ago in Obama’s policy (likely even Obama understood that it would have to be sorted out at some point).
Just wanted to remind folks that this is the result of having to appear to do what Lindsey Graham and John McCain recommended in order to shut them up.
The report also shows some deeper and more serious issues in the way that orders are being propagated through the military chain of command. And how intelligence from the field is not making it back clearly enough.
The hardest part of the policy was going to be getting Turkey and Saudi Arabia to give up Daesh/ISIS/ISIL as a client movement and to get Turkey to come to some political accommodation with the Kurds. Watch those two issues as well as the fate of Bashir Assad as the endgame on ISIS works itself out.
