Such awesome friends and allies we have in the region.

Israel, per the article, is helping out the ISIS/Al Nusra crowd.

Turkey has been doing the same.

MOUNT BENTAL, Golan Heights—This mountaintop on the edge of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights offers a unique vantage point into how the complexities of the Syrian war raging in the plains below are increasingly straining Israel’s ties with the U.S.

To the south of this overlook, from which United Nations and Israeli officers observe the fighting, are the positions of the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda that the U.S. has targeted with airstrikes.

Nusra Front, however, hasn’t bothered Israel since seizing the border area last summer—and some of its severely wounded fighters are regularly taken across the frontier fence to receive treatment in Israeli hospitals.

To the north of Mount Bental are the positions of the Syrian government forces and the pro-Iranian Shiite militias such as Hezbollah, along with Iranian advisers. Iran and these militias are indirectly allied with Washington in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq. But here in the Golan, they have been the target of a recent Israeli airstrike. Israel in recent months also shot down a Syrian warplane and attacked weapons convoys heading through Syria to Hezbollah.

It would be a stretch to say that the U.S. and Israel are backing different sides in this war. But there is clearly a growing divergence in U.S. and Israeli approaches over who represents the biggest danger—and who should be seen, if not as an ally, at least as a lesser evil in the regional crisis sparked by the dual implosion of Syria and Iraq.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/al-qaeda-a-lesser-evil-syria-war-pulls-u-s-israel-apart-1426169708

This is probably not even up to date anymore.



http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/americas-strategy-failing-world-complex-use-enemy-enemy-friend-strategy.html

And a headache coming on.

Now: US-Israel Downgraded to yellow
US-Iran up to yellow
Turkey-ISIS green
Israel-Al Queda: Yellow when fighting Hezbollah

And not all of them are honest players. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are playing both sides.

And true

How absurd! to swallow a bird

What's going on is pretty simple.

Well, simple to explain.

Israel is throwing in with the Sunni side of a (technically undeclared) sectarian regional war. It does so because it's snuggled up with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both bastions of Sunni power, and the Shia side is primarily backed by Iran, which happens to be the only regional nation strong enough to vie with Israel for political and economic influence.

Now, some of the complications...

1) Probably most obvious, if the Syrian "rebels" (al-nusra, alqaeda, Daesh, etc) win in Syria... Israel is the next target. Israel's played this game before, pitting Hamas against the PLO, and ended up getting backstabbed. it's bound to happen again. These groups' other backers - especially the Saudis - aren't going to pull the plug once it happens (though they won't openly cheer it on, either - that would be so very impolite)

2) Making things really complicated... is the United States. The United States wants to resume strong relations with Iran. We've already made our position on Iraq crystal clear - it's within our "sphere of influence," and we're going to help Iraq out for the long run. Why? We want to detangle ourselves from Saudi Arabia and probably Egypt. These two nations are nothing but a hassle for US policy, and are a net loss - we're aligned with them because of their regional influence, but almost all of that influence is garnered through US funding and fronting. However, we have no apparent desire to disengage from the third man in the triangle, Israel.

The US needs to find some way to bring Israel on board the train to Tehran. This will greatly free up US diplomatic efforts towards Iran, quickening a thaw and improving relations. This could result in an internal thawing of Iran as well (it wouldn't be fast, but it would begin.) Such an alignment would quickly isolate Saudi Arabia, which is the primary cause of instability and conflict in the Middle East.

That's key, if anyone is interested in bringing peace to the region - isolate Saudi Arabia, pinch off its tentacles.

Te only way Iran wants to be friends with US is if we allow them to do whatever they want.
Israel has had a nuke for years and none of their neighbors rushed out to try to get one because of it. Iran's nuke program has already started a much bigger arms race because S.A., UAE, Jordan, etc are certainly afraid of Iran having a nuke. They've never really feared Israel's having the bomb.
Iran has supported more exterior terror plots than S.A. has.

as has Al Qaida militants.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/tr/security/2014/04/battles-isis-jabhat-nusra-iraq-syria.html

Makes sense.