Citing the current “fecklessness” of American policy towards Syria, which has led to the defection of moderate rebels to extremist factions and the growing military assertiveness of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, a staff editorial in The Washington Post called for an American-protected safe zone to allow moderate opposition leaders and rebels to organize within Syrian territory.

One consequence of this fecklessness has been the defection of Syrian fighters to jihadist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda. Another has been the apparent decision by Saudi Arabia’s new leadership to join with Turkey in providing new support to rebel groups, rather than continuing to wait for U.S. leadership. The rebel advances in northern Syria have been made by a coalition including Jabhat al-Nusra and more moderate factions. Though the Islamists say they will not impose their rule on the captured provincial capital, Idlib, they offer a unpalatable political alternative for the majority of Syrians and for the West.

Many military experts don’t think the Assad regime is near collapse, though such wartime judgments are necessarily uncertain. Yet it’s clear that a moderate and credible alternative is desperately needed. One big reason previous U.S. efforts to foster one have failed is that it has been impossible for civilian opposition leaders to base themselves and organize inside the country. That’s why a U.S.-backed safe zone, along with an expanded military training program, is needed: not to intervene in the civil war but to make an acceptable solution to it possible. A continued refusal by Mr. Obama to act will only increase the chance that as the Assad regime loses ground, that held by terrorists will expand.

A Post editorial last month called for stronger American action against Syria due to the regime’s continued use of chemical weapons.

In August 2011, at the beginning of the rebellion against Assad, President Barack Obama said that Assad must be removed from power. In February of 2015, during an interview with the BBC, Assad claimed that the United States alerted him as to when and where they would strike at Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets within Syria.

[Photo: BBC / YouTube ]