In an act of breathtaking effrontery, the Syrian regime has put itself forward to the Americans as the coordinator of an international coalition against the terrorist group ISIS. At the same time, Assad's foreign minister Walid Muallem has warned that the US should not attack ISIS positions in Syria without permission. To do so, he said, would be considered “an act of aggression”. Were it not for the regime's bloodstained record, these pronouncements would be farcical. Assad and his creatures know all about aggression, whether it comes to gassing women and children or bombing and shelling civilian areas. The millions of refugees and almost 200,000 dead are testament to the enormity of what this regime has done. With Russia flying top cover, the Syrian dictator has put his country to the sword while a dithering Obama White House has refused to act early and decisively to end the tragedy of the Syrian people. And indeed, Muallem's strutting turkey-cock performance promoting Assad as a bastion against ISIS terrorism actually serves to underline Washington's grievous failure. Just as the Bush intervention in Iraq prepared a battleground on which Al-Qaeda bigots could flourish, so the Obama lack of intervention in Syria created a stage on which the ISIS fanatics could gather. Had Obama acted swiftly to reinforce the Free Syrian Army and bring the revolution to a swift and successful conclusion, the cancer that is ISIS would never have been able to take hold. Assad would not have been able to foster these fanatics so that he could justify his original lie that he was not being confronted by a popular uprising but rather by foreign terrorists. The only pleasing element is that having sowed the wind, Assad himself is now reaping the whirlwind. The terrorists have overrun the key Tabqa airbase, the regime's last stronghold in Raqqa province which is now completely under ISIS control with the town of Raqqa as its de facto capital. It is Obama's spectacular failure to act that has launched this catastrophe on Iraq and indeed the Syrian people. Now is surely the time for decisive moves by Washington, both militarily and politically. The Americans should seek no permission from Assad to attack the terrorists in Syria. More importantly, Obama must make it absolutely clear that there will be no cooperation with the Assad regime against ISIS. There have been persistent rumors of backdoor contacts between Washington and Damascus. There appears to be a body of opinion on Capitol Hill that is arguing that Assad, odious though he may be, represents a position of stability in a deeply unstable situation. The point is further being made that with relations with Moscow heading back down to almost Cold War levels, because of the Ukraine, now is not the time to assault Assad. It may even be with some relief that US policymakers find that they can claim that they have to face the overwhelming threat of ISIS terror, which means they are absolved of taking action against the Assad regime. If this is indeed where the US administration is heading, then it will compound its shameful failures in Syria. Bush and now Obama consistently ignored the advice of friends and allies in the region, not least here in the Kingdom. Washington has thus fostered a disaster in the shape of ISIS while effectively nurturing a ruthless and hateful dictator in the shape of Bashar Assad.
