Rather than boosting the capacity of existing moderate fighting groups, the U.S. administration has decided to build an entirely new force. As currently envisioned, this plan will be too little, too late. The fighting units will be much smaller than Islamic State forces operating in Syria. In addition, the plan will further split the moderate armed opposition and will do nothing to counter the Islamic State’s biggest recruitment tool — the Assad regime’s brutality.

Moreover, Assad will likely make good on his recent threat in a Foreign Affairs interview to attack the U.S.-trained Syrian rebel force. This is nothing new: Assad’s ground and air forces have consistently targeted moderate armed groups fighting the Islamic State in northern and eastern Syria over the past two years.

If the administration wants these beleaguered fighters to be successful, it will face the question of expanding the U.S. air mission in Syria. Protecting these small units from Assad air force attacks, even in eastern Syria, would require some kind of no-fly zone, a step the administration has long resisted. If the Obama administration goes through with such a step, it ought also to negotiate a package deal with the Syrian opposition and regional allies to get all sides on the same page on a strategy for degrading the Islamic State and achieving a negotiated Syrian political deal.