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"The uprising against the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad was still young when moderate rebels made their plea to Washington: Provide us with arms so we might fight the dictator \u2014 and prevent the rise of more extremist groups.\nBut President Barack Obama, who had come into office on the promise of drawing down American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, was reluctant. He was not getting into another Middle East mess.\nSee also: 5 Things You Need to Know About the New Iraq Conflict\nNow, however, those same extremist groups feared by the moderates have gone on a murderous rampage through Iraq and Syria, slaying security forces and civilians and openly bragging about it on Twitter. After the fighters captured a strategic dam and sent tens of thousands of people on the run in northern Iraq, creating a humanitarian crisis, Washington was finally forced to respond. On Friday, U.S. forces bombed Islamic State positions near the Kurdish city of Erbil.\n\nSmoke rises after airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants near the Khazer checkpoint outside Erbil in northern Iraq on Friday. Image: Khalid Mohammed/Associated PressThe previous administration was too eager to get into Iraq; the current administration was all too hesitant.\nWhen the Free Syrian Army (FSA) first sounded the alarm about more radical fighters coming to Syria, what the moderate rebels wanted from Washington, in addition to weapons, was a no-fly zone as had been imposed in Libya when rebels fought the dictator there. This would give them a better chance to fight Assad's brutal regime and more credibility on the ground. \nBut even Assad's chemical attacks against civilians did not spur American military action. Instead, Assad was told to divest himself of those weapons but was otherwise left to slaughter his people. So far, according to activists, at least 170,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war, which has laid waste to cities such as Aleppo and Homs.\n\nA young boy holds up a sign during an anti-regime demonstration in the Syrian village of al-Qsair on February 3, 2012. Image: ALESSIO ROMENZI/AFP/Getty ImagesThe FSA was largely made up of Syrian defectors and secular fighters, with a modern outlook. But without weapons and the ear of the U.S. administration, they were weak. In other words: not the group you'd join, if you were going to Syria to fight.\nAnd many people were going.\nOpportunists and true believers from around the world joined the fight as it metastasized in Syria. And in neighboring Iraq, where disenchantment with the Shiite-dominated government ran high, a group of radical Sunnis once affiliated with Al Qaeda saw an opportunity to build their brand and expand their fight into Syria in pursuit of regional dominance. \nSee also: Iraq Militants Likely to Stand Strong Through U.S. Airstrikes\nOnce they arrived in Syria, the radical militants began fighting more moderate rebels; with the help of Assad's forces, they eventually squeezed the moderates into retreat. Assad, for his part, left the radicals alone, and fighters from the Islamic State (then called ISIS or ISIL) were free to pour over the border into Iraq, first taking cities in the western Anbar Province (where many American soldiers had lost their lives) before threatening key cities in northern Iraq.\nLast month, President Obama announced that 300 military advisers were going to Iraq to help security forces there battle the militants. But he ruled out deploying any troops on the ground, having pulled them out in 2011. On Friday, he took a (small) step further, approving the limited strikes \u2014 in part to protect American personnel stationed in Erbil.\nThe administration didn't know whom to back among Syria's shadowy groups. Radicals saw \u2014 and took advantage of \u2014 American hesitance, building their movement. Now that the radicals have stepped out of the shadows to show their true ambition, however, there is no longer any doubt who the enemy is.\nBut is the American involvement too little and too late?\nHaving earned both confidence and fighting experience on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, the militants will not go away quietly, even if the strikes might help the Kurds in northern Iraq fight the Islamists. (On Friday afternoon, Kurds reportedly were able to evacuate thousands of a minority sect who had been stranded on a mountain in northern Iraq without food or water.) \n\nKurdish Peshmerga fighters stand guard during airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants near Erbil on Friday.Image: Khalid Mohammed/Associated PressMore long term, however, even this limited American involvement might help bolster the militants' recruitment effort. After all, nothing builds a radical brand like fighting America.\nAnd bombings alone won't solve the underlying tension over power sharing in Iraq. The current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, shares in the blame over what has happened in his country. He must be forced to help solve it. \nObama was surely aware of the vagaries of history \u2014 how weapons sometimes fall into the wrong hands, as happened in Afghanistan when President Ronald Reagan armed local jihadis to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union, enabling the rise of Al Qaeda. \nBut if Obama doesn't find a way to curtail the Islamic State, history will judge his administration harshly, too.\nThe rebels, who could have fought the radicals, already do.\n\u201CThe Americans right now have actually made a big mess,\u201D a rebel commander in Damascus told the Daily Beast last year. \u201CThey made everything so confusing.\u201D\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/08/08/how-obama-helped-iraq-militants-grow/>