Holes in the Neocons’ Syrian Story

Exclusive: The Islamic State and Al-Qaeda’s Nusra
Front continue to make gains in Syria while Official Washington plays
the blame game, pushing a dubious narrative that the crisis wouldn’t
have happened if President Obama had just backed “regime change”
earlier, Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry

Official
Washington’s narrative about Syria’s civil war is that innocent
“pro-democracy” protesters were driven to violence because the Syrian
government cracked down harshly – and that if only President Barack
Obama had armed the protesters and supported “regime change” at the
beginning, the current crises in Syria and Iraq could have been averted.

But
the storyline was never that black and white. Though there surely were
many Syrian protesters in 2011 simply seeking the end of President
Bashar al-Assad’s rule and political reform, there were also extremist
elements in their ranks from the start, including “Al-Qaeda in Iraq”
terrorists, as a Defense Intelligence Agency report describes.