How The Syrian Revolt Went Wrong

Liz Sly, Washington Post: How the Syrian revolt went so horribly, tragically wrong

GAZIANTEP, TURKEY — To get rid of one bad man, you open the door to many.

That is a rough translation of the slogan Wael Ibrahim had written on the banner he was preparing for the next anti-government demonstration he and his fellow democracy activists were planning in the Syrian city of Aleppo. It was February 2013, and Ibrahim, a truck driver who had become a leader in the protests against President Bashar al-Assad, was trying, as diplomatically as possible, to sustain the spirit of the original revolt without offending the newly ascendant and increasingly extremist Islamists.

He failed. A man who had thrown himself into a struggle against a dictatorial government was threatened, harassed and eventually detained six months later by the Islamic State. He has not been seen or heard from since.

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WNU Editor: Right now .... all that the Syrians are doing is fighting who will control the rubble.