Where will the jihadis in Syria go when their jihad in Syria is over?
The key concern, the Israelis said, is where the jihadis go after Assad falls. Do they stay on in Syria to fight any Alawite militias that may appear? Do they go west to Lebanon, to fight the Shiite group Hezbollah? South to try to cross into the Golan, and fight the Israeli army? Or east into Iraq, to fight as Sunnis against the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Maliki — which the Israelis saw as perhaps the most likely outcome?
But there is another possible outcome: that the jihadis go to Europe to commit acts of violence and terror there. Why would hundreds of them possibly go to Europe? Because they came from Europe.
The facts are pretty clear: There are hundreds and hundreds of European Muslims now fighting in Syria.
Just remember, there weren't battle-hardened jihadis graduating from the Iraq War because we slaughtered the scum while we fought them there. We didn't train jihadis in Iraq--we broke their backs. So much so that when we surged in Afghanistan it was with the Taliban as our enemy and not al Qaeda.
When the rebellion began, we didn't want to "militarize" the conflict in Syria by arming rebels, recall. And here we are 70,000+ dead Syrians later with a jihad national training center prepared to send graduates back to their homes.
But Iraq was our greatest strategic mistake in modern history, according to some purported deep thinkers. Whatever.
