From Somalia to Kosovo to Libya, the problem with America’s humanitarian interventions has never been ascertaining the nastiness of the people we’re fighting against. It’s been ascertaining the efficacy and decency of the people we’re fighting for. That’s a particular challenge in the case of ISIS in Syria.
I’d love to believe our government is wise enough to surmount that challenge. I’d love to, but I don’t.
One of the two inefficacious, indecent "fors" is of course Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad. The other, notes Beinart, is even more problematic: the "moderate" Free Syrian Army:
Citing research by the University of Virginia’s Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl, [international affairs professor Marc] Lynch argues that the moderate/jihadist dichotomy that governs much of the American discourse about opposition fighters in Syria doesn’t hold on the ground, where various armed groups have engaged in "rapidly shifting alliances." As Abu Yusaf, an ISIS commander, recently told journalists with The Washington Post, "Many of the FSA people who the West has trained are actually joining us."
But back to Beinart's doubts about our government's wisdom to overcome these problems. I'm not sure "wisdom" is the right word.
Unlike antsy, arm-'em-at-all-costs neocons like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the Obama administration has been wary of the FSA from the get-go, and at any rate wise enough to appreciate that weapons in the hands of even authentically moderate rebels might well wind up in far less agreeable hands.
As for Assad, no further "ascertainment" of his indecency has been necessary for some time.
Where does that leave Obama? With the awareness that two of Syria's three evils are lesser ones--indeed an awareness that dictates to, and modifies, currently accepted wisdom.