Here’s what our efforts in Syria have amounted to.

“The West is more hated than ever. A recent poll found that 80 per cent of Syrians believe we created the Islamic State — a common belief, incidentally, throughout the Middle East (and not entirely inaccurate). So it took Washington and its reactionary Gulf allies four years and billions of dollars to end up eating humble pie. They have now effectively admitted that Moscow was right about Syria all along. In the process, they have undermined any humanitarian credibility our military adventurism may still have had after the Iraq nightmare.”

This is what the neoconservatives in charge of US foreign policy have wrought.

Savor it.

Will any one pay any price for this epic fail, or will they saunter on to a new and more exciting failure?

Personally, I’m betting on new and more exciting failure, since the neoconservatives never say they are sorry and never ever get held responsible for their ongoing failures.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quote from the Great Gatsby seems about right in describing them.

“They were careless people—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Update: It just gets better and better.

“In another embarrassing setback for one of President Barack Obama’s centerpiece strategies for defeating the Islamic State, the Pentagon said Friday that the commander of U.S.-trained Syrians appears to have turned over his pickup trucks and weapons to al Qaeda militants in exchange for protection within days of re-entering his homeland.”