Mujahideen and jihadis active in Iraq are now "Iraqi insurgents." And mujahideen and jihadis active in Syria remain the usual "Syrian rebels." They have been all decommissioned as "terrorists." Under this logic, the Colorado Batman shooter may also be described as an "insurgent."
Follow the money
As it stands, the romanticized Syrian "rebels," plus the insurgents formerly known as terrorists, cannot win against the Syria military -- not even with the Saudis and Qataris showering them with loads of cash and weapons.
What's certain is who would profit from Syria being progressively balkanized. The House of Saud and Qatar would love nothing better than to have the civil war exported to Iraq and Lebanon; in their very narrow calculations, that would eventually yield fellow Sunni regimes.
So expect Saudi and Qatari funds buying every well-connected Syrian regime apparatchik in sight -- even while the urban Sunni bourgeosie still has not abandoned the ship.
And as the civil war spreads out, a tsunami of weapons will keep inundating Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and of course Turkey, boosting assorted guerrilla outfits, Kurdish included -- yet one more facet of now ostracized neo-Ottoman Turkey impotently watching nation states carved out of that 1920s colonial line in the sand being smashed.
Strategically, this will always be a war by proxy; essentially Saudi Arabia vs Iran -- with the House of Saud behind hard-core Islamists of all colors compared to Qatar supporting "its" Muslim Brotherhood. But most of all this is the US-NATO-GCC vs Iran.
Israel's motives go way beyond the Saudi/Qatari sectarian lust. Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has just excavated a Bushism -- calling Iran-Syria-Hezbollah an "axis of evil." What Tel Aviv wants in the long run is clear; for Washington, Obama administration or not, to bring down the axis.
Meanwhile, this long-term goal does not prevent Defense Minister Ehud Barak from getting crazy -- speculating on an invasion of Syria based on a hypothetical transfer of Syrian anti-aircraft missiles or even chemical weapons to Hezbollah.
Washington for its part would love at least a pliable/puppet Sunni regime in Damascus to turbo-charge the encircling of Iran -- without increasing Israel's substantial fears. Meanwhile, what passes for "smart power" is no more than glorified wishful thinking. Here in detail is how pro-Israel functionaries in the US are designing post-Assad Syria.[5]
Meet the new Bane
For all its production values, NATO's jihad -- in conjunction with al-Qaeda affiliates and copycats -- still has not delivered regime change. UN Security Council sanctions won't be forthcoming, as Beijing and Moscow have already stressed three times. So Plan B's keep surfacing all the time. The latest is straight from the Iraq playbook; Damascus will attack civilians with chemical weapons. This lasted only for a few news cycles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already made it clear -- regime change is anathema, especially for a reason that eludes most in the West -- jihadis at the gates of Damascus means they are a stone's throw from the Caucasus, the possible new pearl in a lethal collar bound to destabilize Muslim Russia.
Blowback meanwhile is ready to strike like the Medusa. What is for all practical purposes NATO-GCC mujahideen/jihadi death squads will be more than happy to bleed Syria across sectarian lines -- in the sand and especially in urban areas. It's hunting season now, not only for Alawites but also Christians (10% of the population).
A foreign policy that privileges Sunni jihadis formerly known as terrorists to create a "democratic" state in the Middle East seems to have been conjured by Bane -- the Hannibal Lecter meets Darth Vader bad guy in The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of the Batman trilogy. And yes, we are his creators. While the best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity, a masked Sunni jihadi superman is slouching towards Damascus to be born.
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