Brick by Brick

C.I.A. Study Finds Covert Aid to Rebels Rarely Works is no surprise.  "It's a very mixed history," said Loch K Johnson, a Professor of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia and an intelligence expert. "You need some really good, loyal people on the ground ready to fight."  Currently in the Iraq and Syria counter terrorism conflict the only really good people on the ground ready to fight is the pesh merga of the Kurdish State in Iraq, Kurdistan. This is a political entity that has an honest government providing police and security to a people with a desire for independence.  This type of unity and purpose is what is needed as a moderate force in Syria.

Iraq will break apart.  Kurdistan is where our military aid will eventually go as our assistance in the rest of Iraq fuels the civil war between Shia and Sunni.  As we focus on the Kurds expect them to slowly consolidate westward in northern Iraq into Syria where it will join up with the P.K.K., the Turkish Kurds working for independence in Turkey and who currently are experiencing containment efforts by the Turkish military that will fuel a war of separation from Turkey along the the northern border of Syria.  That is unless Turkey relents and allows a Kurdistan State to develop within the lines as the one in Iraq. It appears that the P.K.K. might have the semblance of an ally with political wherewithal to receive assistance and take back Territory from ISIS and then govern northern Kurdish regions of Syria.

Southern Syria requires a moderate Sunni political entity to develop in Jordan's refugee camps before any thought of of assistance can be contemplated. Think of the years of build up in England before the Normandy invasion, except the costs will be insignificant in comparison to that effort and all other recent ones we have had in the region.