It isn’t just that we are intervening on behalf of the rebels in Syria by providing weapons. We are intervening on behalf of a specific faction of rebels, with various Arab states supporting the other faction. Since you can’t tell the players without a program, after the jump we have a guide to who’s fighting who in this complicated proxy war we’ve gotten ourselves into.
From Eugene Robinson: Giving arms to Syrian rebels is a bad idea – The Washington Post:
Why decide now to announce stepped-up direct support for Gen. Salim Idriss and his rebel forces? It is surely not a coincidence that the Syrian military — with the help of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia backed by Iran — has been pulverizing the rebels in recent weeks and now threatens to recapture Aleppo, the country’s commercial hub.