Bill,
if you have to, 'blame' me for overusing hyperboles or 'summarizing in quite a rough fashion' (i.e. without going into all the details that people like you might find necessary), but surely not for 'twisting facts to twist my narrative'.

For reasons I explained above, the ISIS didn't have it easy - and is still not having it easy - in Syria, and therefore didn't rise anything as quickly as anybody is trying to explain. Even now, nearly a year and a half since they appeared there, their position is shaky - at best. Just for example, when Ahrar ash-Sham overrun one of their positions (actually, it was a gas station run by one of pro-ISIS Syrian clans), they needed 3 days to get bunch together enough of their stupids to launch a counterattack (which miserably failed, what a surprise). If you really need more examples, let me know: the list is very long.

Re. Assad and stupid decisions: I know that the concentration capability and memory of most of observers in the West is meanwhile rather comparable with that of fish, but Assadist regime should actually be renown for establishing and running terrorist organizations as and when it needed any.

Want to hear one of (genuine) Syrian jokes about Assadists, from back around 2003-2004? Let me remind you, that was the time when Qusay Bush was bunching Assads into the 'Axis of Evil' etc. So, scared shi.-less they would be the next (after Saddam), the Assads rushed to create 'their own' al-Qaida already back then: the bunched together a group of stupids from various prisons and have left them launch a series of 'bombing attacks' on banks etc. in Damascus. And, imagine: all these 'extremist Islamists' were then 'shot by their glorious security authorities', what a surprise, eh...?

The ISIS is precisely THE kind of 'enemy' the Assadists are claiming to be fighting against right since the first public unrest in Syria, in February-March 2011. Trouble is only: there was no ISIS, nor any other kind of 'genuine' Salafist/Wahhabist terror organisation in Syria back then.

So, why would it be 'twisting facts' if I come to the idea that it's perfectly reasonable to conclude the Assadists helped the ISIS establish itself in Syria?

This part is where I think you are playing with the facts. Assad and his father certainly established a dictatorship
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but to compare that to the tactics ISI is using was a stretch until this current conflict where admittedly Assad lost all moral legitimacy with the way he responded.
Please, Assad never had anything like 'moral legitimacy'; and sadist ISIS' cut-throats even less so.

There is the rest of the story that must be considered to provide needed context, and that is the Muslim Brotherhood....
J, Bill...

Specifically: in the first 1 1/2 years of this uprising, the Moslem Brotherhood in Syria didn't fight with anybody. That's why all the Syrian merchants didn't close their shops (as was hoped for, and which was - at earlier, pre-Assad times - the first sight of 'really deep trouble' for any regime in Syria), and didn't join the insurgency: because they are predominantly supporters of the MOBs. And where are all of them and on which side are they now... only Allah knows that (I guess).

...and regarding other what you call 'fundamentalist Sunnis': they didn't start the ethnic strife. That was the regime. During the first 1 1/2, nearly 2 years of the civil war, the regime was purposely recruiting people from one ethnic group and paying them to attack another ethnic group. It was such groups - recruited by the regime - that launched first attacks on Syrian Christians. It was such groups that prompted the emergence of such insurgent groups like 'Jesus, Son of Mary...' and similar battalions. And now comes the best part: do you know that quite a bunch of such Christian, Assyrian, Turkic, even Kurdish etc. native insurgent groups have sided with the Islamic Front meanwhile? How comes?

Perhaps you don't know, and let's say I'm a completely clueless idiot: but, hell, do you think they don't know who was attacking them and why they took on arms to fight the regime?

Our media and Congress initially focused on the FSA which created this vision of good guys and bad guys, which was not an accurate portrayal of the conflict.
Yup, the usual, 'FSA this, and FSA' that story.

FSA was an idea. Never a coherent movement. I discussed this to death only some 30 times by now. Sorry if I don't go into this again.

As to your other comments about ISI's strategy....well as much as I hate the ISI I have to agree that is pretty sound strategy on their part.
Definitely so, then - as we've seen in al-Jufra - they're walked over 'even' by the Mahdi Army...

I agree with you here, they have been sponsored by wealthy individuals for years as you pointed out, but I also don't find it unreasonable that some states could sponsor them based on the Sunni-Shia civil war...
Stop right here, please. Yes, you're talking about Salafists/Wahhabists, and yes, they're 'more disciplined' and 'more structured' than the rest of the Sunni-World. And yes, even sparrows on my roof-top know that the wife of former Saudi ambassador to the USA was sponsoring al-Qaida from her own pockets....But heaven... no, their idea of Umma was never sponsored by any 'nation/state' as such. Sorry.

Furthermore, if ISIS is controlling the borders as stated in the article, they may simply be grabbing the weapons, money, etc. coming in that was destined for other groups.
No, no, and no. Because there is something called 'geography', and this is described in something called 'maps', and the maps and geography of Syria are teaching us that the 'border crossings' in question is one border crossing on the border to Iraq, which is under attack by the PYD from Syrian, and a (very successful) Iraqi Army offensive from Iraqi side. And if 'they' want to see any other 'border crossings' there, then there is only one, on the border to Turkey, meanwhile held by the IF (the IF's take-over of that crossing - from FSyA - was then used by Washington as excuse to stop the flow of aid to Syria from Turkey).

That all aside, and seriously: we're not talking here about the US-Mexican border in Texas, but about an empty desert with poorly-demarcated border-line between Iraq and Syria, large parts of which are out of anybody's control since only a few mileniums. Anybody volunteering to declare this border as something like 'inpenetrable', i.e. to insist that the ISIS 'needs border crossings for survival'....?

If you're talking about today after a few years of war you're absolutely right, but if you're talking about Syria prior to the conflict it was far from bitterly poor. In fact their economy was growing rapidly and steadily, even during the global recession, and the middle class was expanding. Germany and other countries found Syria to be one of, if not the fastest, growth market for their luxury cars. Of course not all benefited from this growth, just like most countries in the West, to include the wealthiest we have large pockets of poverty.
Bill,
one of the reasons I'm so mad about all the insanely wrong reporting about 'spread of al-Qaida in Syria' is that I've been around that country so much, and have met and talked so many people there. Combined, I've spent something like a year there, back in the 2000s.

Sure, German luxury cars, the 'Four Seaons' Hotel, Russian-built (Saudi sponsored) refinery in Dayr az-Zawr, plus all the Saudi investment in infra-structure by side... Sufficient to say: the 'not all benefited from this growth' included only something like 90% of the population. Yes, sure, in 2005, the state doubled the pay of all of its employees (depending on estimate, between 35% and 70% of the workforce), but already the Lebanon War of 2006 hit the economy very hard (simply because all the Syrians were so scared, they stopped spending). Subsequently came a draught, and then various other problems (one of them was caused by the EU's decision to buy-up all the palm-oil for years in advance; this destroyed the waffle-manufacturing industry in Syria because - also due to various embargos - it couldn't find any other source of palm-oil anywhere else) etc. All of this hit the country so hard, it didn't start recovering even as of 2010...

I saw this all with my own eyes. No matter where it comes from, everything else is 'guestimate' in my ears.

In your view if there are any good guys who are they?
There are nearly 18 millions of - potentially - good guys there. All provided one has got the money to pay them. I don't have that money. But even if somebody comes to the idea he/she has got it, the decision-maker in question oughts to keep in mind that the other bidder now is nobody else but al-Sauds (it might not be that way 'physically', but 'metaphorically', 'ash-Sham' (Syria) is the hearts and minds of Saudis; saudis are provincials, literal analphabets from the empty desert; for them, 'Dimashq' is 'the' place to go; water, green gardens, culture, everything....one can't really describe what kind of prize is that country for Saudis) - and the IRGC.

Guess that might mean quite a fierce competition there.

My concern is our indecisive support will simply drag the conflict on longer and more and more innocent people will continue to suffer.
Well, that already happened. Without Iranian intervention in February-June this year, the Assadist regime would've collapsed. They even managed to run themselves out of fuel before Iranians came to save them (actually, the Republican Guards Division - or the two mech brigades which are all that is left of it - was out of fuel until few weeks ago).

It's simply too late - and out of our control - now.