Syria isn't pretty--and our decisions made it less pretty, have no doubt--but it is good that some rebels are fighting al Qaeda's main organization there:
Only on the complex and bloody battlefields of Syria could there emerge a schism that would seem absurd elsewhere: “good” al-Qaida vs. “bad” al-Qaida.
That concept is becoming increasingly accepted as Syrian fighters intensify their campaign to reclaim the mantle of the rebel cause from extremists who had become as formidable an enemy as President Bashar Assad, the autocrat they’ve failed to topple after nearly three years of war.
Analysts who monitor the Syrian insurgency caution that the rebel forces fighting or taking territory from the feared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, are themselves no champions of a Western-style democratic plan for Syria. The fighters run the spectrum from avowed al-Qaida loyalists to ultraconservatives who want no cooperation with the West to two new groupings of more mainstream rebels who complain that the Obama administration has abandoned their struggle.
That new alliance of fighters does have some fighters we can work with. But many are clearly going to be future enemies.
But it is useful to encourage the new alliance to fight ISIS (or ISIL, as it is sometimes translated).
It is useful both to take down ISIL a bit.
And it is useful to use that shield to build up the rebels we'd prefer to work with.
The League of Women Voters--Moscow Chapter wasn't in charge of the USSR in 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. So let's not insist on absolute litmus tests for those willing to kill "bad" al Qaeda.
Mind you, I'd send way more help to the guys we'd like to be strong, but we should do enough to keep anyone willing to fight al Qaeda and Assad in the field. Keep in mind the next stage where the "good" al Qaeda move up on the enemy list, but don't ignore the chance of hurting bad al Qaeda (and Assad) until then.
