By Expanding Attacks Inside Syria, The US May Become Entangled In Rebel Rivalries
Article by: ZEINA KARAM , Associated Press
September 11, 2014 - 2:30 PM
BEIRUT — In expanding its airstrikes into Syria against Islamic State extremists, the U.S. could find itself entangled in a morass of jihadis, rebel rivalries and religious hatred.
Unlike Iraq, the U.S. has no firm allies inside Syria to take over areas if fighters from the Islamic State group are pushed back. Unless the West decisively backs the outgunned moderate rebels, it risks the unintended consequence of prolonging the widely discredited rule of President Bashar Assad.
President Barack Obama said Wednesday that in the fight against the Islamic State group, the U.S. "cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people — a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost."
"Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria's crisis once and for all," Obama said, referring to the Islamic State group by one of its acronyms.
But it's a lot more complicated.
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