LETTER FROM WASHINGTON — From the January 2016 issue
A Special Relationship
The United States is teaming up with Al Qaeda, again
By Andrew Cockburn
"Even as we have continued our desultory bombing campaign against the Islamic State, Ahrar al-Sham and Nusra are creeping closer and closer to international respectability. A month after the London Eleven meeting, a group of scholars from the Brookings Institution published an op-ed making the case for Ahrar al-Sham: 'Designating [the] group as a terrorist organization might backfire by pushing it completely into Al Qaeda’s camp.' (The think tank’s recent receipt of a multiyear, $15 million grant from Qatar was doubtless coincidental.)
Over the past year, other distinguished figures have voiced support for a closer relationship with Al Qaeda’s rebranded extensions. David Petraeus, another former head of the CIA, has argued for arming at least the 'more moderate' parts of Nusra. Robert Ford, a former ambassador to Syria and a vociferous supporter of the rebel cause, called on America to 'open channels for dialogue' with Ahrar al-Sham, even if its members had on occasion slaughtered some Alawites and desecrated Christian sites. Even Foreign Affairs, an Establishment sounding board, has echoed these notions, suggesting that it was time for the United States to 'rethink its policy toward al-Qaeda, particularly its targeting of Zawahiri.'”
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