Our Ally, the Enemy¶
It’s not exactly a formal pact between the United States and Al Qaeda, but no one honestly thinks it’s anything really different. Either it’s a rough triangles play, or it’s sheer insanity.
Time won’t tell, but it will hint, as the intervention proceeds. If it makes things worse, before guttering out into indecision, stalling resolution, then it might make sense. In any case, it’s big.
(Drew M. at AoS is a seriously hard-core rough triangles guy: “We should help whichever side is losing at any given moment but only to the extant that it enables them to fight on to take and inflict more casualties. There’s no scenario where one side winning helps us.”)