Tentative Support in US Congress for Arming Syria’s Rebels

Secret Congressional briefings have apparently borne some fruit, and the Obama Administration has reportedly gained “tentative” support from Senators who were opposed to arming Syria’s rebels.

How the administration answered criticisms of its plan to arm rebels, which came under criticism for getting the US involved in an open-ended civil war and potential having the arms end up in the hands of al-Qaeda fighters, is unclear.

But as US officials are getting less cautious, one of the most outspoken international advocates for the scheme, British Prime Minister David Cameron, is said to have scrapped his own plans, leading rebels to accuse him of “betraying” them.

Cameron’s newfound concerns are the same ones that people have been warning about for a long time, that arming the rebels will suck them into the war and that the increasingly divided rebels may lose at any rate. The warnings took awhile to reach the British leadership, apparently, and still haven’t gotten to the Obama Administration.