Syria air strikes: President Obama undergoes Damascene conversion as Isis forces America to change tack

As if it ever were. There were negotiations over the chemical weapons, and no airstrikes, no attempt at removal. Cockburn is just offering smoke and mirrors. There have been a lot of these stories that America is realising they have to work with Assad, and they all seem to emanate from sources that wish it to be true. That the non-arming of the Syrian rebels in 2012 has come back to be an issue this year suggests that a similar failure will not be as easy to get away with. I think the truth is that the priority for the US is to risk as little as possible, and to act in a way that respects the international system of states it sits atop if it can, but that propping up Assad isn't going to help the US, so they are going to make less effort to preserve it, not more.
"It is evident that Washington is no longer giving priority to removing President Bashar al-Assad from power. This means the US is shifting away from its policy of the past three years when it insisted that no negotiations were possible except about his removal."
So do these moderate rebels exist or not?
"The US is going to train and arm a “third force” of supposedly moderate Syrian rebels in a camp in Saudi Arabia, but past attempts to develop such a force have foundered."
I don't know what he's on about in the next sentence.
"It is in the interests of the US that the “moderate” rebels do not fight each other, a confrontation that would only benefit Isis."