Syria: Will jihadists seize control?

The U.S.’s worst-case scenario is unfolding in Syria, said Tim Arango in The New York Times. With tyrannical President Bashar al-Assad tottering after a two-year civil war, “the lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from al Qaida” has emerged as the uprising’s most aggressive and effective force. That extremist group, the al-Nusra Front, has carried out deadly suicide bombings against regime targets, and in recent weeks its 10,000 fighters—many of whom are veterans of al Qaida in Iraq—have overrun a succession of heavily fortified military bases. Every victory boosts the Front’s reputation, attracting more rebels to its ranks. Alarmed by its rise, President Obama this week blacklisted the al-Nusra Front as a terrorist organization and formally recognized the Syrian Opposition Coalition. But it might be too little, too late. “Our mission won’t end after the fall of the regime,” said Hakam, an al-Nusra Front fighter.

Obama will bear the blame if Syria becomes “a Taliban-like state,” said Max Boot in CommentaryMagazine.com. The president has refused to arm the secular opposition, fearing the weapons would end up in the hands of extremists. With the U.S. out of the picture, wealthy Islamists in Saudi Arabia and Qatar saw an opportunity “to shape the uprising in their own twisted image,” funneling cash and arms to the al-Nusra Front, making it the most potent faction. It’s time for America to get “some skin in the game,” said Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times. The secularist group Washington backs, the Free Syrian Army, won’t win “support on the ground unless it amasses more of the currency of power in any insurrection: military supplies.” If the U.S. stays on the sidelines, we’ll have no influence when Assad does fall.

No matter what the U.S. does, the end result will be chaos, said Tony Karon in Time.com. The Kurds have carved out an autonomous zone along the Turkish border, the ruling Alawite minority is preparing to retreat to its coastal homeland, and rival rebel groups—most of which hail from Syria’s Sunni majority—are grabbing as much territory as they can. “Even the major cities, Damascus and Aleppo, now contain internal, ethnic, and ‘sectarian’ borders across which mortar and artillery fire blazes.” No one group is likely to gain full control of this tragically fractured nation. After Assad, Syria appears doomed to years of “civil wars, within civil wars.”

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