Wikileaks: To Weaken Iran, US Undermined Democratic Syrian Opposition to Empower Radical Groups

Internal USMC Intelligence documents confirm what's been obvious all a long:

https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/emailid/2867729

That media “reports of protests [against the Syrian government] are overblown” and that the moderate rebel movement in 2011 did not pose “a meaningful threat against the [Syrian] regime,” given that it was “extremely fractured” and “operating under enormous constraints”.

Instead of strengthening these groups, this document states that it is in the U.S.’ interest for Turkey to “manage” efforts to topple the Assad regime, as Turkey “is the country with the most leverage over Syria in the long term, and has an interest in seeing this territory return to Sunni rule.” Those Turkish-led efforts would involve gradually building up “linkages with groups inside Syria, focusing in particular on the Islamist remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood in trying to fashion a viable Islamist political force in Syria that would operate under Ankara’s umbrella.”

The document advocates for these efforts to mold the “fragmented” elements of the moderate opposition into an “Islamist” proxy force of Turkey in order to support the gradual “weakening of the Alawite [i.e., Assad] hold on power in Syria,” as well as because “Turkey, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others have a common interest in trying to severely under[mine] Iran’s foothold in the Levant and dial back Hezbollah’s political and military influence in Lebanon.”

The document also acknowledges that “any political transition in Syria away from the al-Assad clan will likely entail a violent, protracted civil conflict” and later adding that “the road to regime change will be a long and bloody one.”

The current National Security Adviser John Bolton called for the establishment of an autocratic Islamist state in Syria back in 2015, stating on FOX News:

However, a few months later in the New York Times, Bolton also suggests that Arab Gulf States like Saudi Arabia “could provide significant financing” for the creation of this new country, adding that “the Arab monarchies like Saudi Arabia must not only fund much of the new state’s early needs, but also ensure its stability and resistance to radical forces.” This new state, which he nicknamed “Sunni-stan," would have “economic potential” as an oil producer and would serve as a “bulwark” against the Syrian government and “Iran-allied Baghdad."

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/opinion/john-bolton-to-defeat-isis-create-a-sunni-state.html

 

And at that time, it was accurate.

What people fail to see is that the "Syrian Civil War" is not so simple. And it is really composed of 2 main "groups".

First are the domestic fighters, which is primarily what that was talking about. That was never a very large force, and were never a major threat to the Syrian government.

Then secondly you had the Jihadists, who largely entered Syria after that was written, in 2013. They fled into Syria after being almost completely wiped out in Iraq by US and Iraqi forces. Many of them surged back into Iraq after the US pull-out, but others remained in Syria.

The problem here is that you are trying to claim the situation in 2011 is the same that it is today. It is not the same at all.