If Libya is any indication of what could happen if Assad were ousted, it would be wise to focus on ISIS and leave the Assad regime intact.

To me this is the key fault line.  Are you willing to fight a war to beat ISIS without “liberating” Syria from Assad? If so, I’m in. If not, we’ll be creating bigger problems than we solve. Namely, the American people are not likely to sign on for “a multi generational” occupation and rebuilding of Syria that we are unlikely to be able to accomplish. If you demand that as the price of fighting ISIS, you won’t get the chance to fight ISIS.

And how are we to prosecute this new war? Will it be a WWII destruction mission or counter insurgency mission where “courageous restraint” will be the order of the day? Again, sign me up for the former but not the latter.

Of course the idea of trying to fight ISIS while removing Assad has become even more ludicrous since I wrote that post in February. When you hear candidates talk about removing him, ask yourself, “how are you going to get the Russians to throw him under the bus?

So while Assad’s regime is happy to do business with ISiS and use them as a shield against regime change, there’s not much we can do about it.

We have to accept certain realities. The US has done business with far worse regimes than the Syrian Baathists in the name of fighting an even worse enemy (think Stalin and Hitler in WWII), we can suck it up and crush ISIS while working with Assad and the Russians. Keep Reading…..