America’s attempts to train and direct local rebels regularly turned into living satires where ginned-up “moderate” groups quickly surrendered their American-provided weapons to al Nusra. When America’s interventions weren’t comical fiascos of wasted money and bluster, they were simply horror shows come to life. We don’t as much advertise the images produced by Nour al-Din al-Zenki, a U.S.-vetted and -supported Islamist faction that sent out a video of its men beheading a child and celebrating this as a victory over their enemies. Washington’s hawkish intellectuals came up with long-shot scenarios under which the U.S. could remove Assad without empowering the Sunni beheaders and other fanatics. But even these plans seemed to shrug when tackling the bigger question: Who is fit and able to govern Syria after Assad?
It is idiotic to believe the rebels now broadcasting the enormities from Idlib would be accepted as just leaders by the Syrian people. Even though these same rebel groups effectively made their military cause synonymous with “the people of Aleppo,” the truth is that when the people of Aleppo were allowed to evacuate from that battle last year, only about one third of them wanted to be taken to Idlib, under the protection of the rebels.
Western policymakers wish that the Syrian civil war could end in such a way that it deprives Iran of an ally in Damascus (Assad), does not allow the spread of ISIS, does not end in al Qaeda capturing the machinery of the Syrian state (however broken), and institutes a stable settlement that ends the refugee flow that contributed to Brexit and empowered populist nationalists across Europe. There has never been an on-the-ground ally in Syria capable of delivering this, unless Americans governed Syria like a colonial possession for the next five decades.
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