[oezi]

If it was, it certainly was a failed CIA operation.

No but honestly: while the US had some interest with the Kurds, they didn't engage to cause the Syrian civil war nor did they were able to stop Russia from gaining influence.

And I am not really sure if your mixing up ISIS supporters in your narrative. I haven't heard that they were links to the CIA for any terror in Europe connected to Syria.

[tored]

CIA trained and funded rebel groups, some ended up fighting alongside Al-Nusra (Al-Qaida in Syria). US weapons also ended up with Al-Nusra. In the same way there where islamist rebel groups in Libyan civil war (LIFG) and CIA did clandestine operations during that time too with different rebel groups.

And every US bombing campaign against the Syra regime de facto helped ISIL/ISIS.

Turkey, a NATO member, trained their own rebel groups and also made sure to have allow every jihadi to pass into Syria. Turkey is strongly anti-kurd. (Parts of this jihadi militia was this year sent to Azerbaijan by Turkey to fight against the Christian Armenians)

It is almost impossible for us outsiders to know what rebel group fought with what group and what objectives CIA actually had, however just the fact that US helped create a terrorist hotbed in Syria, together with a NATO ally, which in turn lead to terrorist attacks in Europe. Or the terrorist hotbed that was sprung up in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi.

Depending on the level of trust you have for American intelligence services you could either say that because of unintended consequences it resulted in terrorist attacks due to incompetent management or that working with the enemy of my enemy is part of their tactics and collateral damage is part of the game.

On the surface it looks like a failure for CIA because Bashar al-Assad is still in power, however it was not a failure for the coalition behind US/CIA, like Israel and Saudi Arabia, e.g. Israel has now permanently annexed the Golan Heights from Syria. Syria war was proxy war against Iran, which is an ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, see the Yemen war.

[jacquesm]

> If it was, it certainly was a failed CIA operation.

That's not rare at all. See also: IS, Al Quaeda, vast swaths of Africa (which are now being ceded to the Chinese) and Latin America. The world is littered with failed CIA plots, and the fall-out of those will last for decades.