Blast in Syria kills most leaders of largest anti-Assad rebel group

[pampango]

20. "Assad is many things, but he's not stupid." He certainly is not. Leaving ISIS alone

was a brilliant strategy.

The tactic of letting rebel groups fight each other as much as possible makes, as you say, "a sound battle plan". And the idea of leaving one rebel group alone so that it has a relative advantage over the other groups makes some tactical sense as well.

My question is: How/why did he choose ISIS as the rebel group that would be the beneficiary of the decision not attack militarily? It could just as easily been one of the other rebel groups since they have been fighting with ISIS, just as ISIS has been fighting with them. If he had chosen Syrian rebels to ally with, he could have portrayed it as a patriotic "Syrians vs foreign terrorists" campaign, and then gotten back to fighting each other after ISIS was defeated.

By allowing the radicals to slaughter the moderates, he's creating a situation where the world has to choose between an Assad-led Syria, and a radicalized, terrorism exporting Syria. And he gets to create that situation without firing a shot.

All true. Great points.

As you said "he's not stupid." Far from it.

AND Assad has been trying to say all along that his opponents are all "foreign terrorists." ISIS was not in Syria when this started but they are now and they certainly fills the bill. Leaving ISIS alone helped make what he has been saying since 2011 actually come true.