Uncle Sam's Three Sunni Stooges fuel sectarian war in Syria

Three and a half years ago, the US greenlighted expansion of the raging civil war in Syria, with the death toll now approaching 400,000. At a March, 2012, conference in Saudi Arabia, we acquiesced to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey arming Sunni rebel groups seeking to overthrow Syrian president Assad. We said it was OK to arm 'moderate' rebels, when in fact virtually all of them seek jihad against the Shiites, Alawites, Druze and Christians, all being protected by President Assad. If the rebels win, many in those groups will die. The US will never admit that this bargain with the Devil to remove Assad has prolonged the war and worsened the unspeakable toll on the Syrian people and their land. A year earlier we had a chance to broker a peaceful settlement but sabotaged the deal because it would have left Assad in power, a non negotiable demand in winning our proxy war against our imagined enemy in the Middle East, Iran.

Uncle's three stooges give us military bases and support for our futile efforts to prevent Iran from exerting hegemony in the region. Now the proxy war against Iran includes nuclear armed Russia employing its considerable power to insure its bordering ally Syria does not fall to Sunni jihadists who could use Syria to destabilize Russia as well.

Syria is now the most dangerous trip wire in the world for both a massive regional war; even a nuclear one. After failing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia, one would think we'd pause before continuing the death spiral of failed US military intervention. And one might ponder that with friends like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey...we don't need enemies.