You Can’t Tell The Players Without a Scorecard

Let me see if I understand the present situation in Syria correctly.

We have troops in Syria under the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). That gives the president broad latitude in pursuing the individuals who perpetrated the attacks on September 11, 2001 and countries that aided them. No one thinks that Syria aided the 9/11 attackers. We’ve actually been supporting rebels who are affiliated with Al Qaeda so the AUMF is being used to justify helping those it was written to allow us to attack.

We do not have a formal alliance with the Kurds. The Kurds don’t actually have an organization with which we might have a formal alliance. They’ve been fighting DAESH to defend their homes and they would have done that whatever we did. For them it’s a matter of survival.

We do have a formal alliance with the Turks but they have become the Bad Guys and we’re fighting them without even a tissue of legal authority. Or are we fighting them? Maybe they’re just bombing us.

The Russians actually have a formal agreement with Syria and the Syrian government has requested the Russians’ assistance so, unlike us, the Russians being in Syria is perfectly legal.

And then there’s the Iranians. We’ve abrogated a treaty with the Iranians which some very well-informed people seem to like which doesn’t appeared to have slowed the Iranians’ nuclear development program down much if at all but has given them a considerable amount of cash to allow the regime to engage in foreign adventurism. They’re basically providing footsoldiers in the Syrian government’s efforts to regain control of their country.

Is that about right?