Tulsi Gabbard Warned About What was Happening in Syria — and So Did I

During her Senate confirmation hearing, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said this about the situation in Syria at the time: “I have no love for Assad or any dictator. I just hate al-Qaeda. I hate that our leaders cozy up to Islamist extremists, calling them ‘rebels,’ as Jake Sullivan said to Hillary Clinton, ‘al Qaeda is on our side in Syria.’ Syria is now controlled by al-Qaeda offshoot HTS, led by an Islamist jihadist who danced in the streets on 9/11, and who was responsible for the killing of many American soldiers.”

At this point, it is abundantly clear that Gabbard was right, and Sullivan was wrong. Al-Qaeda is not on our side in Syria, and the toppling of the Assad regime has not brought “democracy” or peace to the country. Instead, as Greek City Times reported Saturday, “hundreds of Christians, including Greek Orthodox, and Alawites have been killed after clashes broke out on Thursday in the Latakia and Tartous regions on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, according to a human rights monitoring group.”

This was likely an understatement of what was really happening: “The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said on Friday that more than 225 people have been killed since Thursday. However, this is believed to be a gross underreporting, with activists on the ground, such as Coast Youth Forum, believing the death toll could be as high as 1,800, mostly Alawites, but also Christians.”

And so Fox News reported, also on Saturday, that Gabbard’s “warning of a terrorist takeover in Syria looks to be coming true amid reports that al Qaeda-linked terror forces aligned with Syria’s interim new president—a former al Qaeda terrorist—are being accused of massacring Alawites as well as members of the country’s dwindling Christian community.”

An Alawite woman recounted that the jihadis said that “Alawites are pigs, and they have to execute all of them and the small children before the elderly people.” She also “confirmed reports that the Islamist forces murdered the prominent Alawite 86-year-old cleric Shaaban Mansour and his son Hussein Shaaban.” She added that in the Alawite towns of Nahr al-Bared and Deir Shamil, the jihadis were ” entering houses and killing people and stealing everything. They are covering their faces.” She said: “I feel there is no safety. There is no homeland. There is nowhere to escape to, and no one to defend us. I feel fear and horrifying feelings.”

These are the people whom Barack Obama and Old Joe Biden wanted for years to take power in Syria. Back in April 2022, journalist Aaron Maté wrote that “Obama officials now back in office under President Biden coordinated with the jihadist franchise in an effort to topple the Syrian regime – while claiming they backed only the ‘moderate opposition.’”

Maté added that “in waging a multi-billion dollar covert war in support of the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, top Obama officials who now serve under Biden made it American policy to enable and arm terrorist groups that attracted jihadi fighters from across the globe. This regime change campaign, undertaken one decade after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, helped a sworn U.S. enemy establish the Idlib safe haven that it still controls today.”

In the course of this wrongheaded campaign back in 2012, Jake Sullivan, who was then Director of Policy Planning, wrote to his boss, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

I was among the few who were calling attention to this astoundingly foolish policy at the time. On Sept. 17, 2013, I wrote at JihadWatch.org: “The U.S. is now officially on the side of al-Qaeda.” This was because of Barack Obama’s plan to arm and train “vetted” members of the Free Syrian Army. In September 2014, said the New York Times, “Mr. Obama said he envisioned the Free Syrian Army’s providing the ground presence needed to confront ISIS in Syria.” Obama also said: “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted.”

But the Free Syrian Army was not vetted, not moderate, and never actually in a position to confront ISIS. Nor did it ever do so. There were numerous reasons why Obama’s plan was unwise from the start. In July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area. Nor was that an isolated incident. Worthy News reported that just two days after the attack on Oum Sharshouh, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon … Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.”

The New York Times reported in August 2014 that, according to Abu Osama, a member of a Nusra Front brigade that participated in the attack, the Arsal assault was “a combined operation involving fighters from the Free Syrian Army, the Nusra Front and ISIS.” And PJ Media reported the following month that “multiple media reports indicate that the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) is operating openly with ISIS and other designated terrorist groups.”

Now the jihadis are in power in Syria, and they’re behaving in exactly the same way. Will this finally mean the definitive end of the Obama foreign policy strategy of aiding the enemies of our nation? We can only hope.