Quote Originally Posted by Azor View Post
There are over 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria against Assad. I have read of numbers as high as 2,500.
Well, if your list would be complete, the figure would be closer to 7,000.

Means not that they're 'completely and hopelessly disunited' though. There are about a dozen of umbrella organizations that really matter. It's like if there are about a dozen of political parties: nothing unusual under given circumstances.

Therefore, I find it ludicrous that we can even reliably categorize the opposition as secular/moderate or Islamist, even though we know all these ideologies exist on the ground.
Well, that's the essence of the 'problem': knowing about all the different political positions of various of its combatants, the FSyA said already back in July or August 2011: we are non-political; we first want to remove Assad, then we'll talk about politics.

But nah: everybody else knew 'better'. Therefore, all the possible foreign powers have ever since conditioned their aid on political declarations, colour of flag and other BS. First to do so was Turkey, which imposed an ultimatum upon the FSyA leadership to subject itself to the Moslem Brotherhood already in November 2011. Just a week or so later, it was followed by Qatar and Kuwait, which began providing extensive aid on condition of insurgents pledging alegiance to groups Salafist and Wahhabist movements... and when everybody else attempted to create 1-2 umbrella organizations, in autumn 2012, Qatar and Kuwait did whatever was possible to disunite, and provide aid directly to 'hand-picked' groups - all of which subsequently joined Jabhat an-Nusra.

Eventually, there is only one solution: remove Assad, then organize free and fair elections, and let the people decide on their own. Without that, we'll never know what kind of government majority of Syrians actually want to have, and whether that majority of them are 'really blood-thirsty terrorists' - like all the nearly everybody in the West and most of the East 'knows' - or else.

If we continue to allow the Iranians, Russians and Shia irregulars to primarily attack secular/moderate opposition forces (or the most secular/moderate of the opposition) then AQ and IS will come to dominate the opposition.
Sounds OK but... well, if Syrians haven't turned into wildest extremists after the last five months of barbaric Russian bombardment, they'll never do so.

Means: that train is already away.

More problematic is the fact that meanwhile the JAN - which was just one foot away from all-out war not only against the FSyA, but also against the (Salafist) Ahrar ash-Sham, and which would've lost that war very badly - is now profiting from a new wave of Jihadists that are travelling to Syria in reaction to Russian military intervention there, exactly as announced here back in September.

Once again: congratulations Oblabla, and now also special thanks to Putler.