Newfie wrote:Obama.
I could never figure it out, which side was which.
Seems like a great place to avoid.
But, to be honest, I have never really sought out the reason for us being there. If there is a reason I do not know it.
This is one that seems to scream for congressional approval.
The official Syrian government and Russia have had a port agreement and semi-alliance status going back to the 1970's. In the teen decade there was a famine with multiple causes in the middle east including Syria. This led to two events, mass migration into western Europe by refugees *the refugee crisis was the first. The second was a rebellion by the poor people in Syria who were struggling despite food aid from the government against the Russian allied government. The Neo-libs and Neo-cons in Washington D.C. thought this was a great opportunity to break the alliance between Russia and Syria and started sending lots of military supplies to the 'rebel' forces. ISIS started out as one of the rebel forces but turned around and started using those supplies to grow in bordering Iraq as well as in Syria and they quickly started committing all sorts of atrocities.
This led to a long series of mistakes and missteps with the neo-lib/con forces in D.C. claiming to be on the side of the angels while ISIS grew and revolution in Syria foundered. Eventually the USA directly intervened by sending forces to Syria but so did Russia and the two sides of the civil war each hold a large chunk of the geographic area called Syria.