This is John Batcher, conversation with my good colleague Bill Raggio, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy,

Long War Journal, about Syria, the broken ungoverned, abandoned failed state of Syria.

Bill identifies that there are so many factions in Syria including the powers that would

be Russia and the United States and Turkey, along with all the attendant

Al Qaeda and ISIS bands and others all in Syria fighting for unclear purposes at this point except for as Bill

says game of Thrones Syria darkness visible thrones, not to be forgotten as a source of future chaos.

More of this tonight, here's Bill.

Yes, John, Syria is the ultimate game of throne situation with many factions and none of them good.

You have the Syrian government, you have the Iraqi militias, you have the Islamic State you have al-Qaeda's branch there

and as well as a sort of a former al-Qaeda branch that is still dips their toe in the

al-Qaeda pool then you have the Turkestan Workers Party who we

rebranded as the Syrian, ironically rebranded as the Syrian Democratic forces.

Then you have, you know, you have some scattered resistance or militia groups and

tribes.

It's a threat because nobody really controls the situation there.

And it's a breeding ground and a training ground for all of these terrorist organizations.

The Iraqi militias get combat experience Lebanese Hezbollah the and of course the

the jihadist groups themselves use it for recruiting the Islamic State me is

remains a threat there the UN estimated their strength that somewhere around 4 to 5,000,

I think that number is very low. The Islamic State is very dangerous.

They actually controlled, believe it or not, control some territory in remote areas, much like

al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula does in Yemen.

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