Try a thought experiment. Let’s say there were no ongoing Syrian conflict and none on the horizon. Let’s imagine that, instead of working 24/7 to facilitate Muslim Brotherhood domination of Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, the Obama administration or Butch & Sundance actually used their time to develop a can’t-miss plan to drive a wedge between the Hamas terrorist organization and its lifeline, Iran. Not the pie-in-the-sky we usually get from these quarters — the kinds of plans that bank on Assad’s being a “reformer,” the Brotherhood’s being “largely secular” moderates, or the Libyan “rebels” being Madisonian democrats. I’m talking about a plausible plan that had decent probability of success. What would that have been worth? In light of how well busting up the Iran-Hamas partnership would have served U.S. interests, we’d probably have been willing to wager four or five of Obama’s Solyndra schemes on that — though maybe not the cost of a McCain global-warming boondoggle.

Well guess what? The Syrian conflict has fomented just this trouble in jihadi paradise, and we haven’t had to pay a dime. Hamas is now the problem of its Sunni-supremacist patrons – and they are in no position to provide the Palestinian “resistance” with Iran-level help, not with Egypt broke and Turkey’s economy verging on a major contraction. The Hamas divorce weakens Iran, as does Assad’s teetering. Moreover, the growing divide between pro-Brotherhood Hamas and pro-Assad Hezbollah weakens both, and is thus a setback for global jihadism. Meanwhile, the seamless alliance between the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda, as well as that between Turkey and the array of Sunni supremacists, crystallize for us the folly of seeing either Ankara or any emerging Ikhwan government as a friend of the United States.

By letting events play out naturally — rather than trying to orchestrate them with our usual ham-handed, politically correct, Islamists-are-people-too approach — we find that the anti-Americans are at each other’s throats. I’d love to be able to say this was the result of shrewd maneuvering. In fact, it probably owes to inertia — or to Obama’s realization that another Libya-style misadventure would damage his jittery reelection prospects.

Whatever the reason, the always thrumming but rarely spoken truth of Middle Eastern politics is shouting loud and clear in Syria: Islamic factions abhor the United States even more than they despise each other. When we get involved, they set aside their internecine hatreds and unite against us. When we have enough wit to stay out, however, they set upon each other with a savagery that shocks the West but is, in their culture, quotidian.