Wall Street Journal Story on Rise of #ISIS Focuses ONLY on far less important Assad regime role; ZERO mention of the Gulf and Turkey roles which were the key
▻http://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/wall-street-journal-story-on-rise-of-isis-focuses-only-on-far
Very disappointed by Maria Abi-Habib’s long piece in the wall street journal Here:
▻http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/assad-policies-aided-rise-of-islamic-state-militant-group-1408739733?mobil
She is an excellent reporter but to have such a long story with ZERO about what most analysts and government folks seem to agree on now: the part of the story involving Assad going easy and even facilitating ISIS is significantly less important to understanding ISIS’s rise than the massive support garnered from Turkey and from funds that originated in Gulf countries. Not to mention the joint decision early on – with tacit approval from the US – to lubricate a militarization of the Syrian uprising (key actors in the US believed, very wrongly, that Assad would fall quickly under ramped up military pressure – this proved as false). Having just been in Washington, this is certainly widely held now, finally… its obvious and THE key part of the story.
I have no idea how Maria could have left out this.
She claims: “This account of how the Islamic State benefited from the complex three-way civil war in Syria between the government, the largely secular, moderate rebels and the hard-core Islamist groups was pieced together from interviews with Syrian rebel commanders and opposition figures, Iraqi government officials and Western diplomats, as well as al Qaeda documents seized by the U.S. military in Iraq.”
This is maybe 10-20% of the story.