The Enemy of My Enemy is My Cannon Fodder

I'm really sorry that the Vermont Chapter of the League of Women Voters isn't fighting Syria's Assad. So if we want to defeat Assad, we're going to have to send arms to those actually fighting Assad.

I know. It sucks that sending arms to Syrian rebels will result in some--perhaps a lot--getting to Islamists. While I've recently read that the Islamists dominate the rebels, Strategypage (if memory serves me) has reported that Islamists represent 10-20% of the total. They're the most effective, it is true. But that is hardly "most" of the rebels. Surely we can manage to limit the arms we ship that might get to Islamists.

And one reason Islamists are dominating is that their aggressive nature has allowed them to seize depots and attract arms from those who want to fight Assad. I hope that our arms shipments will encourage rebels to join the non-Islamist groups going forward just for the opportunity to have better equipment.

Further, I imagine one group we'll arm is the pro-Jordan force that I read was being set up back in January. If that has been successful--and given discussions of arming rebels and training them on Jordanian territory, I imagine it was done--we'd have a more reliable force to arm and form a core to attract more recruits.

But some of our arms will get to Islamists. And others will send arms directly to the Islamists regardless of our wishes. Take some comfort that our enemies, the Islamists, will be fighting our enemy, the Assad regime. You want to sacred nuance? I got your nuance right there.

Just remember that when the statue of Dad Assad comes tumbling down in Damascus, the war isn't over. The post-Assad phase when we need to support the non-Islamists against the Islamists for control of Syria will be the next objective we have to pursue.

And while the war against Assad and his Iranian backers (and Hezbollah cannon fodder) goes on, we need to bolster the non-jihadis on the battlefield and diplomatically while compiling information on the identities, locations, and habits of the jihadi types. If we have to unleash the drones on the jihadis after Assad is down for the count, let's do it right.

So grit your teeth and send in the arms. War is a blunt instrument. Insisting we can fine tune it to suit our ultimate objective right from the start is not going to happen. Right now, we need to take down Assad. You do remember we shipped arms and supplies to Stalin in order to defeat Hitler, right?