But i notice you think Kindred is right about the “destabilizing security dilemmas” thing. I think he is probably wrong. Interesting that that post has gotten linked so much, at least in certain circles (first Adam Elkus, now you).

But really, the bigger issue here is that ending the war quickly is not necessarily to check the influence of jihadist groups. We see this assertion that jihadist groups will die out without the war. I don’t see much proof of that. You say that they lose their vigor once the “black and white” war is over, but that’s exactly the opposite of what happened in Afghanistan. Deobandi groups such as the Taliban did not gain dominance until *after* the black-and-white, everyone-hates-the-commies phase of the war ended, and they gained popularity because the groups we helped armed and supply were useless warlords (and warlordism is something relying on foreign support contributes to, because why hold yourselves accountable to people who aren’t paying your bills anyway?)

Indeed, since the end of Libya’s revolution, jihadists have started running around with little consequence, since the rest of the militias don’t care much to fight them because they’re not as odious as Gaddafi and they don’t threaten the system of local warlordism so long as the jihadists don’t interfere with other factions ability to extract rents from their own sectors. The jihadists, on the other hand, may become even more motivated and invigorated once the new government can be shown to have the hand of the evil Crusaders behind it. They already consider the post-war a more important phase than the war itself. So I think this assertion that the jihadists are just going to melt away once Assad is gone is incredibly dubious.

Again, you talk of the “failure of leadership” and the need to build a state because the alternative is “accepting chaos” and “competing proxy agendas.” But simply arming the rebels does nothing to build a state (indeed, foreign suppliers reduce the need for rebel groups to build legitimacy and bases of support from domestic sources, Tilly and Giustozzi’s work has some good points about this dynamic), nor does it do anything to reduce chaos (arming rebel groups is not going to end warlordism or create a centralized government in Syria), and unless we arm a rebel group capable of crushing the jihadis and sealing Syria’s borders, and pay it so much money that it won’t take money from anyone else (fat chance), there are still going to be competing proxy interests, which may mean our new rebel buddies, like the ones in Libya, will decide to pocket the benefits of U.S. support but continue letting rival groups do their thing so long as it’s in areas they feel aren’t worth the hassle of enforcing control over anyway. So the best you can say for arming the rebels is that it ends Assad’s regime more quickly, that it makes the post-war any easier relies on a bunch of highly suspect assumptions and factors the U.S. has little influence over.