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In reply to the discussion: Islamic State 'retreating' in key Syria town of Kobane [View all]karynnj
(59,503 posts)The TITLE, not the article, falls prey to the false belief that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. The article does establish that IS (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daish etc) has MANY enemies.
The example here is that Hezbollah stopped IS from sending arms to LAF, a Hezbollah enemy - that we also are against.
The fact is that the US should be against ALL terrorist groups - rather Shiite or Sunni. The fact that Obama held back from arming the Sunni rebels because some were terrorists or allied with terrorists was not a mistake - even if the Republicans, Clinton, Panetta and the media think so.
In the case of Hezbollah, it is a Shiite terrorist group, but also has a political/governing wing that is part of the government of Lebanon. It is in Syria, allied with Iran, Syria and Russia - all of which are also against IS. One complaint in the past, was that until IS attacked Assad facilities, these forces fought most of their battles with Sunni rebels -- some that we support and some, like Al Nusra, that we do not support and fight as part of AQ.
In some ways, ours is the trickier position. They support Shiite, whether terrorist or not. We are fighting Sunni terrorists - both IS and AQ, while also trying to support Sunnis forming a moderate society that could play a reasonable role in a future Syrian government and in the Sunni area of Iraq. In Syria, the majority of people are Sunni, so it is not unreasonable that they have some representation in their government. (In Iraq, they are a minority.)
Both artificial states, Iraq and Syria, still suffer from the colonial "trick", that control of the country was easiest for the colonial power, when the MINORITY culture was given preference and power over the majority culture.
In Iraq, the minority Sunnis still feel that they deserve the power they had when Sunni Saddam ruled. In Syria, it is a minority Alawite family, that is allied with the Shiites that has ruled Syria for decades.
Cold war allegiances - on both sides - seemed to have preserved the worst governance everywhere.
I