The three main forces left on the ground today are the Assad regime, Islamic State and an Islamist rebel alliance in which the Nusra Front—an al Qaeda affiliate designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and the United Nations—plays a major role.
Outnumbered and outgunned, the more secular, Western-backed rebels have found themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder with Nusra in key battlefields. As the Assad regime wobbles and Islamic State, or ISIS, gains ground in both Syria and Iraq, reaching out to the more pragmatic Nusra is the only rational choice left for the international community, supporters of this approach argue.
“It does say something when suddenly Nusra become a lot more tempting. It speaks volumes as to the severity of the situation,” said Saudi Prince Faisal bin Saud bin Abdulmohsen, a scholar at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. “At this point we must really differentiate between fanaticism and outright monstrosity.”…
“The Turks, the Saudis and the Qataris have decided that the problem above all is to get rid of Bashar al-Assad, and the Americans don’t have leverage over them to change what they are doing,” said Robert Ford, who served as U.S. ambassador to Syria in 2010-2014 and is now a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
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