Syrian Rebels Embrace al-Qaeda

It is not clear whether the Obama administration has either the will or the strength to convince Saudi Arabia and Israel to stand down. It's easier to simply pretend that Assad is the obstacle to peace talks and that "moderate" rebels could somehow still win the day if the United States only shipped in supplies of sophisticated weapons. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Who Blocked Syrian Peace Talks?"]

However, the battlefield reality inside Syria is increasingly dominated by the Sunni militants who would likely end up with much of whatever the United States delivers, one way or the other, according to intelligence sources.

Thus, the Syrian option favored by most of Official Washington -- to somehow funnel weapons exclusively to the "moderate" rebels so they can oust Assad and build a multi-ethnic democracy -- is a pipedream. Nor does it make much sense to follow through with threats of some calibrated air war to "degrade" Assad's military unless you want to risk the possibility of its sudden collapse and a clear-cut military victory by rebel jihadists.

Indeed, the rebel jihadists may be speaking out now because they had planned a major offensive to coincide with President Obama's threatened missile strikes against Syrian government targets (following a disputed chemical weapons attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21) and were bitterly disappointed when Obama decided to pursue diplomatic initiatives instead.

The Syrian Battlefield

With Tuesday's pronouncement, the dominance of the Islamic extremists can no longer be covered up or ignored. It is a reality that even the mainstream U.S. press corps is acknowledging, as Ben Hubbard and Michael R. Gordon reported for the New York Times from Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday:

"As diplomats at the United Nations push for a peace conference to end Syria's civil war, a collection of some of the country's most powerful rebel groups have publicly abandoned the opposition's political leaders, casting their lot with an affiliate of Al Qaeda. As support for the Western-backed leadership has dwindled, a second, more extreme Al Qaeda group has carved out footholds across parts of Syria, frequently clashing with mainline rebels who accuse it of making the establishment of an Islamic state a priority over the fight to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

"The fractured nature of the opposition, the rising radical Islamist character of some rebel fighters, and the increasing complexity of Syria's battle lines have left the exile leadership with diminished clout inside the country and have raised the question of whether it could hold up its end of any agreement reached to end the war.

"The deep differences between many of those fighting in Syria and the political leaders who have represented the opposition abroad spilled into the open late Tuesday, when 11 rebel groups issued a statement declaring that the opposition could be represented only by people who have 'lived their troubles and shared in what they have sacrificed.'

"Distancing themselves from the exile opposition's call for a democratic, civil government to replace Mr. Assad, they called on all military and civilian groups in Syria to 'unify in a clear Islamic frame.' Those that signed the statement included three groups aligned with the Western-backed opposition's Supreme Military Council.

"Mohannad al-Najjar, an activist close to the leadership of one of the statement's most powerful signers, Al Tawhid Brigade, said the group intended to send a message of disapproval to an exile leadership it believes has accomplished little. 'We found it was time to announce publicly and clearly what we are after, which is Shariah law for the country and to convey a message to the opposition coalition that it has been three years and they have never done any good for the Syrian uprising and the people suffering inside,' he said."

The prospect of Sunni religious extremism imposed on a post-Assad Syria is particularly troubling to Alawites, the sect to which Assad belongs, but also worries Christians, who include communities that date back to the founding of the religion. Other Syrian Christians are descendants of Armenians who fled the Turkish genocide a century ago. These groups fear that revenge by the Sunni jihadists could include extermination campaigns.

So, Official Washington's effort to whip the American people into a war frenzy against Assad's regime, particularly over its alleged use of chemical weapons, now has to contend with this new reality among the rebels. They can no longer be sold to the public as pro-democracy "moderates" locked in a good-guy-versus-bad-guy struggle with an evil dictator.

The leading rebel groups have now announced their intentions: They want a Shariah state and are willing to collaborate with al-Qaeda. But the U.S. options are further complicated because these Islamists have at their backs purported U.S. allies, Saudi Arabia and, oddly, Israel.