Why the USA is now actively aiding ISIS in Syria:
To grasp what’s really going on behind the endless recriminations, we need to understand that the Obama administration has abandoned its original plan to oust Syrian President Bashar al Assad, and moved on to Plan B; partitioning the country in a way that establishes a separate Sunni state where US troops will be based and where vital pipelines will be built to transfer natural gas from Qatar to the EU.
This ambitious plan is more than a redrawing of the Middle East and a pivot to Asia. It is a critical lifeline to a country whose economic prospects are progressively dimming, whose credit card is maxed out, and who is counting on a Hail Mary pass in Syria to save itself from cataclysmic economic collapse and ruination. Washington must succeed in Syria because, well, because it must, because the red ink has finally penetrated the pinewood hull and is fast filling the galley. A defeat in the Middle East could be the straw that broke the camel’s back, the tipping point in the agonizingly-protracted unipolar-new-world-order experiment. In other words, it’s Syria or bust.
There is a long tradition of democratic empires failing as a result of unnecessary military adventures, dating back to the Athenian disaster in Syracuse. It’s much too soon to tell, but the continuing US failure in Syria does tend to smack of a potential turning point with regards to the imperial USA.
Note for the historical ignorati: before you start arguing that the USA cannot be an empire despite its military occupation of more than 70 countries around the world because democracy, I suggest you read about the Athenian empire.