A future terror threat to U.S.?

Thursday, Feb 13, 2014 2:02 PM

Anaylsts are warning that the Syrian civil war may pose a future threat to the United States as the conflict becomes a training ground for future Islamic terrorists. Trucks are fleeing Yabroud, the last rebel stronghold in Syria’s mountainous Qalamoun region, as they drive toward the Lebanese-Syrian border town of Arsal in eastern Lebanon Thursday.

Bilal Hussein/Associated Press

Syria peace talks are on the verge of collapse as the war heads into its fourth year, raising the prospect of a vicious conflict lasting years and plunging border states into chaos that only Western military intervention can snuff out, analysts said.

United Nations negotiators were pessimistic this week that a deal can be struck between dictator Bashar Assad and the anti-regime rebels. Western nations that publicly deplore the violence have no Plan B to end it.

Some suggest it may be OK for American adversaries such as Assad, al-Qaeda, Iran and Hezbollah to stay bogged down in an interminable war

But as the West stands on the sidelines, Syria is becoming a proving ground for Islamic terror factions fighting Assad and churning out battle-hardened jihadists on orders to infiltrate neighboring states, analysts said. Iraq and Lebanon are boiling from Syrian militancy, and more states may follow if the war continues.

“Letting the fighting continue indefinitely and letting al-Qaeda and the Iranians split the country between them, that’s not a good outcome,” said Max Boot, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Syrian soil would become a launching pad for Iranian interests in the region and a launching pad for al-Qaeda, which is a grim outcome,” he said.

U.S. or NATO “boots on the ground” may be the only way to stop Syria from becoming an al-Qaeda safe haven, or worse, an anti-American axis of a nuclear Iran aligned with a brutal Syrian regime and a missile-laden Hezbollah in Lebanon, Boot said.

None of the major factions fighting in the Syria civil war – the Assad regime, affiliates of al-Qaeda, the Free Syrian Army rebels – appears to be any closer to dominating and ending the war that began in March 2011.

Zachary Keck, an associate editor for The Diplomat, a foreign affairs magazine, said the United States is winning by standing by.

The war costs Iran billions of dollars, Hezbollah has lost hundreds of fighters and both have lost standing in the Arab world because of their support of the slaughter of Sunnis, he said.