"ISIL Is Not Islamic"

"Every time there is a new threat that appears on the scene that either the U.S. or the international community is unprepared for there is a tendency to exaggerate it, to portray it as an unstoppable juggernaut."
Fred Wehrey, Mideast expert, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

"There is a lot of anger. The massacres in Raqqa were very humiliating and depressing. This is not tantamount to the collapse of the regime. It is not an Alawite revolt."
Joshua Landis, history professor, University of Oklahoma

"The regime believes what Obama is saying is just for media consumption. After he called for the fall of the criminal regime he can't turn around completely and co-operate with Assad. But in time he will. He will have no choice."
Salem Zahran, editor, pro-government Syrian news organization

President Obama delivers a prime-time address from the White House on Sept. 10, 2014. (Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)

On the eve of the thirteenth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity, President Barack Obama addressed his nation to inform them of his decision to begin American action to deter, deflect, destroy the Islamic State terrorist militias that have sized control of areas within Syria and Iraq, threatening the frail equilibrium in Lebanon, spreading their territory and their atrocities as they march forward. Their direct aim at provoking the U.S. through the beheading of two American journalists was a step too far.

Their conflict in Iraq, headquartering in Mosul and threatening to take Irbil from the Kurds, and by extension threatening the U.S. military presence there has further pushed the American president to announce U.S. continuing air mission involvements but, he emphasized, no boots on the ground. The U.S. air force has flown 153 missions attacking ISIS positions to date, and the 300 U.S. special forces "advisers" on the ground represent the totality of Americans he plans to deploy to Iraq.

His announcement was meant to inform that American involvement in destroying the Islamic State jihadists now included Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad no doubt felt confident that the adversary who had threatened to remove him from office if he crossed a red line on the use of chemical warfare, would now wish to join him in battle against the terrorists he had always claimed were behind the revolutionary zeal of Sunni Syrians.

But it remains the 'moderate' rebels of the Free Syrian Army that President Obama has now finally decided to train and arm. Invariably, such training by U.S. special forces and arming of Islamist groups by the United States comes back to haunt the country. The well-trained and -armed Iraqis simply turned and fled when ISIS entered Mosul, leaving the jihadis in possession of up-to-date American weaponry, a reprise of Afghanistan and al-Qaeda.

And which 'moderate' rebels to be clear, does he plan to train and arm? The rebel 'moderates' who just assassinated the head of one of Syria's largest rebel groups by a suicide bombing which also destroyed many of his leading fighters? Hassan Aboud of Ahrar Al-Sham though an ultraconservative rebel was killed along with 40 others in northwestern Syria; the very group that had fought against the State of Iraq & Al-Sham.

President Obama insists that Iraq must dedicate its government to full representation of all its people irrespective of tribal or sectarian differences. Little does he understand the Middle East and its medieval, convoluted, barbaric politics. Spurred on by the Islamic Republic of Iran with its Shiite terrorism agenda, both Iraq and Syria, ruled by Shiites, have spurned the need to extend equality to their Sunni demographics, much less the Kurds.

Yet here is the United States, under the most war-cautious president it has had in quite a long while, making common cause with Iran, Syria (Qatar) and Hezbollah, in conflict by proxy with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, with Turkey lurking somewhere in between.