Syria's Assad May Be Brutal But He's NOT the Real Enemy of the U.S.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was at a loss to define the No. 1 enemy that posed the clearest and most imminent danger to its interests throughout the world.

The attacks of 9/11 in 2001 and subsequent confrontation with the Al Qaeda fundamentalist Islamic radicals throughout the world has made it very clear that the United States' No. 1 enemy has to be the rise of radical political Islam throughout the entire world.

Since 2001 the United States taken the approach of confronting radical political Islam militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq with disastrous consequences. With equally disastrous consequences for the last five years, the Obama administration has taken a policy of appeasement toward radical political Islam that saw the rise of radical governments in Egypt under the Muslim brotherhood, the rise of The Islamic Al Nahda government in Tunisia and most tragically the rise of stature of Hamas in Gaza through the support it has received from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that came to power with an "assist" from the United States.

What a mess! Today we are chasing radical political Islam not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but now in Yemen, parts of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, Libya, Mali, the Horn of Africa and now Syria.

Rebels from Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra wave their brigade flag as they stand on a Syrian air force helicopter earlier this year. Photo credit: Edib News Network/AP,

Over the past week, we have been bombarded with a rush of information about deliberate chemical attack by the Assad regime against civilians and rebels.Most recently information appeared on an article on the Foreign Policy review web site indicating that the United States has leaked one of this country's most sensitive technical means of communication interception to make the administration's point and rationalize its military plans.

I'm reminded of what happened not so long ago when our Secretary of State testified with irrefutable "intelligence" information that justified the attack against Iraq in front of the UN General assembly. It's obvious, as it should have been clear to us back when we attacked Iraq, that the Obama administration's planned action is that it will do what it wants to do just don't bother it with the facts!

Normally U.S. intelligence services do not divulge that kind information, especially in almost almost real time. That is particularly true if the information is obtained via technical means. Of the technical means, the most sensitive source of information is communication intercept by NSA. These are almost never, I repeat, never revealed.

But if we read the Foreign Policy article closely, we will see that the communication intercepts, if true, give us a picture that is of a battle field situation that may have gotten out of hand as opposed to a planned attack. If we were to assume these are real communication intercepts, then proper and deliberate analysis may very well indicate that this was the action of one rogue officer as opposed to an intentional policy by the Assad regime. If that were to be true, then why would the United States punish the Assad regime for action it did not as a matter of policy take or plan to take? It's as if the United States under Obama's leadership has made up its mind to take action regardless of what the facts are and with no real plan for what comes next!

Let's be very clear, taking military action against the Syrian regime would offset the balance of power between Islamist hardliners -- i.e. Osama bin Laden clones and Al Qaeda supporters -- against a secular regime regardless of how brutal it may be.

To be clearer yet and certainly not politically correct, the the Syrian regime -- regardless of how brutal it is -- has never been a sworn enemy of the United States. That cannot be said of the Islamist fundamentalist radicals who are spearheading the fight against the Syrians and have been our sworn enemy in Iraq, Afghanistan and let's not forget New York!

Any action the United States would take now that would assist or help Islamist fundamental radicals to win a fight in any part of the world would be one mistake after another. It's as if the United States has not learned anything from the past 10 years of continuous mistakes, missteps, and overuse of military power.

The United States' No. 1 enemy is radical political Islam anywhere it appears, any time and in any form. While the United States certainly cannot fight radical political Islam everywhere, we can for sure stop helping them by bombarding and weakening their enemies.