The US aids Syrian Kurds against ISIS even as it acquiesces in Turkey's counterinsurgency against allied Kurdish forces just across the border—undermining anti-ISIS unity.
With Turkey insisting that the Syrian Kurds be barred from upcoming Geneva peace talks, Russia is pressing for their participation—while pursuing its grisly campaign of aerial terror.
The State Department named "bringing peace" to Syria as a 2015 accomplishment—as Russian air-strikes continue on schools, and starvation sets in behind rebel lines.
The UN resolution on a democratic transition in Syria assumes this can happen under Assad's rule. The US is now openly blocking with Russia over support for the dictatorship.
Kurdish strongman Masoud Barzani has invited a Turkish military force into his territory, with the apparent aim of driving the PKK from northern Iraq.
Was the San Bernardino attack politically motivated terrorism or just someone's personal revenge? Either way, pundits right and left are going to be squirming…
Patrick Cockburn's "briefing" to the House of Commons opposing British air-strikes on ISIS was a shameful betrayal of the Syrian democratic resistance—denying its very existence.
A growing split between secular and Islamist elements of the FSA is unfortunately mirrored by a breach between Kurds and Ankara-backed Arab and Turkmen forces.
After Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane over Syria, Vladimir Putin openly accused Ankara of backing ISIS—echoing a charge Kurdish forces have been making for months.
The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling on all member states to fight to eradicate ISIS, calling it "a global and unprecedented threat."
Several PKK sympathizers have been arrested in connection with the Ankara suicide blasts—but the Turkish left charges that the ruling AKP collaborated with ISIS in the attack.
The US and Russia each groom their own rival proxy forces to fight ISIS and the Nusra Front—which in turn pledge to turn Syria into "another Afghanistan."
