The Obama administration has
proclaimed that arming the supposedly moderate Syrian rebels is the
U.S.’s best play in the fight against ISIS. But according to
The Huffington Post, CIA analysts don’t believe that plan
is going to work at all.
It’s an opinion the CIA has been keeping quiet about, until now.
A top CIA official told HuffPost that opinions among
agency analysts range from “ambivalence to outright opposition.”
And they have good reason to hold those opinions—the CIA is
already covertly arming the Syrian rebels, a strategy that
has already been show to have failed, in no small part
because the rebels are unreliable and the equipment eventually
finds its way to ISIS.
According to a Democratic Congressman consulted by
HuffPost:
“I have heard it expressed, outside of classified contexts, that
what you heard from your intelligence sources is correct, because
the CIA regards the effort as doomed to failure,” the congressman
said in an email. “Specifically (again without referring to
classified information), the CIA thinks that it is impossible to
train and equip a force of pro-Western Syrian nationals that can
fight and defeat Assad, al-Nusra and ISIS, regardless of whatever
air support that force may receive.”He added that, as the CIA sees it, the ramped-up backing of
rebels is an expansion of a strategy that is already not working.
“The CIA also believes that its previous assignment to accomplish
this was basically a fool’s errand, and they are well aware of the
fact that many of the arms that they provided ended up in the wrong
hands,” the congressman said, echoing intelligence sources.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement, huh? At least war skeptics
can now confidently state that the president’s plan will fail,
since it has already failed.
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