War with Isis: The West is wrong again in its fight against terror - Patrick Cockburn
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/war-with-isis-the-west-is-wrong-again-in-its-fight-against-terror-995
Underrating the strength of Isis was the third of three great mistakes made by the US and its Western allies in Syria since 2011, errors that fostered the explosive growth of Isis. Between 2011 and 2013 they were convinced that Assad would fall in much the same way as Muammar Gaddafi had in Libya. Despite repeated warnings from the Iraqi government, Washington never took on board that the continuing war in Syria would upset the balance of forces in Iraq and lead to a resumption of the civil war there. Instead they blamed everything that was going wrong in Iraq on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a great deal to answer for but was not the root cause of Iraq’s return to war. The Sunni monarchies of the Gulf were probably not so naïve and could see that aiding jihadi rebels in Syria would spill over and weaken the Shia government in Iraq.
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But while the US, Arab monarchies, Syrian rebels and Turkey may have overplayed their hands in Syria between 2011 and 2013, last year it was the Syrian government that did the same thing by seeking a solely military solution to the war. It has never seriously tried to broaden its political base at home by credible offers to share power, relying instead on its supporters to go on fighting because they believe that anything is better than a jihadi victory. But these supporters are becoming worn out by the struggle because they see no end in sight. The government has always been short of combat troops, a weakness becoming more apparent as it calls up more reservists and diverts conscripts from entering the National Defence Force militia into the regular army. Government forces have made gains around Aleppo and Damascus, but they are losing ground south of the capital and in Idlib province.
