Al-Qaeda joins ranks of Syrian revolt backers

Originally posted by phatpackage
reply to post by theoracle

 

Even shows one of the worst terrorist groups in the world believes Assad's position is untenable. He has to go before he bites off more than he can chew.

edit on 12-2-2012 by phatpackage because: (no reason given)

Actually, it looks to me like al-Zwahiri isn't stupid and realizes that the Syrian government is probably going to collapse under the pressure of multiple factions who all want the future Syria for themselves. Al Qaeda would be stupid not to try to claim their slice of the pie, rather than watch it slip away into another regional faction's grasp. This is exactly why there are Al Qaeda elements in the current Libyan government.

I mean, the equation for understanding these "revolts" is very simple. One faction tries to overtake a government, and so another faction jumps in to compete with the first faction in their domination of the new government- and then another faction jumps in, and another, until the regime collapses. When it collapses, you aren't going to have any direction of your own put into it unless you have established yourself throughout the "revolution".

So as you can see, this isn't so much about how bad Assad is. This is about competition to control Syria, and with more competition generated the regime's fall comes quicker (because there wouldn't be any point to the competition if the regime was not defeated). This is exactly what happened in Libya, and pretty much the same story in post-Saddam Iraq and even Afghanistan. This is the business of war when war no longer belongs to a bipolar global ideological struggle (such as the Cold War, where every struggle was virtually left vs right).