NEW YORK, July 4 (RIA Novosti) – By supporting both Iraq’s government and anti-government rebels in Syria, the United States has clumsily backed opposing sides in turbulent Middle Eastern conflicts, Raed Jarrar, an Arab-American political analyst, told RIA Novosti Friday.
"The administration of US President Barack Obama has requested hundreds of millions of dollars to support Syrian armed opposition groups, while also asking for hundreds of millions more to support the Iraqi government," the expert said.
"US support is destined for opposing sides of the same conflict. In Syria, the US is arming opposition groups who support its anti-regime position. In Iraq, the administration is supporting the regime position, funding and training the Iraqi government and its forces," the analyst added.
“Syrian, and now Iranian, jet fighters have bombed targets in Iraq that have most likely been identified by US intelligence agencies,” Jarrar said.
“Sending more US weapons and military personnel to Iraq will only complicate an already-messy conflict,” the expert concluded.
The Obama administration seeks $500 million from Congress to train and equip some of the “moderate” Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of President Bashar Assad in the country’s three-year-old civil war.
The US has also offered up to 300 American advisers to help Iraq tackle the Islamic State in Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot that is has won territory off both Iraq’s and Syria’s government and declared the creation of an Islamic caliphate.
