Remember al-Qaeda? With all the hype about ISIS it's easy to forget that it was al-Qaeda that attacked us, while Daesh never did.
If you've forgotten that, you wouldn't be alone. It seems that Washington has forgotten it as well, because over the last six months we've been at war with the enemies of al-Qaeda.

The Rise of al-Nusra

Six months ago the al-Nusra Front, or Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria was a dangerous, but minor militia in a multi-front civil war.
Daesh and al-Nusra, once close allies, split in the beginning of 2014 and by spring of that year they were in a full-scale war against each other. Jihadist versus Jihadist. The exact sort of thing we should want to happen.
By July of 2014 Daesh had driven al-Nusra out of Raqqa and Idlib provinces and to the edge of obscurity.

Then something happened.
President Obama bombed both al-Nusra and Daesh, over the objections of his intelligence agencies, thus giving them a common enemy.
Members of al-Nusra and other jihadists groups in Syria proposed a truce with ISIS at Qatar's urging.
Yes, you read that right. According to senior Egyptian intelligence officials, Qatar, our ally in the coalition, brokered a truce between our two enemies.
Qatar isn't alone. Turkey backs al-Nusra as well.

While Daesh sacrificed thousands of its jihadists in the meatgrinders of Kobani and northern Iraq, al-Nusra was given a chance to recover.
They then turned on the moderate Syrian rebels in northern Syria that we've been arming and destroyed them.
First the the U.S.-backed Syrian Revolutionary Front and then the U.S.-backed group Harakat al-Hazm.

Then al-Nusra turned on the Syrian government forces.
They overran two military bases, killing hundreds of soldiers in the process.
Then, after a short respite to consolidate their gains, al-Qaeda launched a larger and more bold offensive that continues today.

Islamist rebels led by al Qaida’s affiliate, the Nusra Front, widened their hold Monday on Syria’s Idlib province, capturing another government base and pressing an offensive near Ariha, a town of 70,000 that has been primarily in government hands since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in 2011.
The latest rebel advance came 48 hours after insurgents seized the strategic town of Jisr al Shughour, which controls the main overland supply route to the government’s military bases in Idlib province. A month ago, rebels captured the provincial capital, Idlib city.

For the past several weeks al-Nusra has been on a rampage against Assad's forces and the Syrian government has appeared to be unable to respond.

Refugees from Ariha now sheltering in Turkey and who are in touch with relatives in the town said there are signs that morale is sapping among government forces and that base officials have sent signals that they’d like to make a deal in order to escape with their lives.

Some of you may be thinking about the Syrian Kurds, and how they might be able to stop al-Nusra. Well think again.

Democratic Union Party (PYD) Co-Chair Salih Muslim said in an interview with a daily published in Iraqi Kurdistan that it is possible for the Democratic Union Party (PYD) to cooperate with the Nusra Front in Syria.
"[The PYD and al-Nusra Front's] goal is the same. We can cooperate now," Muslim said.

It isn't just in northern Syria where al-Nusra is making huge gains. Nusra Front is on the march in southern Syria as well.

On Thursday, plumes of smoke billowed from the Syrian side of the border with Jordan, as Syrian warplanes and helicopters bombed the areas, trying to slow down the advances by rebels who seized the Nasib border crossing.
Nasib is an important route for Damascus to get essentials and for merchants and businessmen as a way to export to the Gulf. A prolonged closure will increase the stranglehold on an economy ravaged by four years of war. Last week, rebels captured the strategic nearby town of Busra Sham, posing in front of its historic citadel and Roman theater in another punch to government supporters.

Coincidently, al-Nusra's gains in southern Syria have largely come within striking distance of our ally Israel. At least seven times Israel has bombed Syrian government forces when they were attacking al-Nusra forces.

It seems bizarre that an al-Qaeda affiliate and its jihadist allies may be on the verge of bringing down the government of Syria and the western governments are virtually silent on the matter.
Assad's government was nearly overthrown before and managed to right itself, but only because Iran saved it. The Iranian-support card has already been played. I don't see anyone coming to save Assad this time.
If there is some way to make lemonade out of this lemon, I'm unable to see it. Unlike Daesh, this group has killed thousands of Americans. We simply can't let it take over a huge part of Syria.

The Rise of AQAP

The most dangerous affiliate of al-Qaeda, according to the Pentagon, is al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) based in Yemen.
AQAP most hated and effective enemy in Yemen isn't the United States, where our drone was is considered counterproductive according to the CIA. It's the Houthis.

Yet for some reason President Obama decided to side with the Saudis against the Houthis.
This has allowed AQAP to run wild.

Local officials said that fighters belonging to the group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, took control of the Riyan Airport and a nearby military base outside Al Mukalla, the fifth-largest city in Yemen. The group also seized the Dhabah oil terminal on the Arabian Sea coast, which the group had tried to capture before, according to Yemeni officials.
Al Qaeda is capitalizing on the expanding multisided war in Yemen and the collapse of its government to carve out territory for itself. When its fighters stormed Al Mukalla, the capital of Hadhramaut Province, they seized government buildings, looted the central bank office and freed hundreds of inmates from the city penitentiary, including a senior leader of the group.

AQAP was on its heels after a government offensive against it in 2012. Now its grabbing territory by the chunks, and once again western governments are chosing to pretend not to notice.

“For the first time, Al Qaeda is building a strategic alliance with the tribes,” Mr. Benomar, who has requested a reassignment, said in an interview at The New York Times on Wednesday. “It is a strengthened and dangerous Al Qaeda. This is what worries everybody.”

Once again we are left wondering if there is some master plan that the rest of us simply aren't privy to, and once again I must conclude that there isn't.
By every available fact, the Yemen strategy of going to war with the Houthis is
underming the war with AQAP.

Back in Yemen, the American campaign against AQAP is stymied. The base from which drone strikes were launched, and Special Operations Forces operated, was evacuated just before it was overrun by AQAP irregulars. The base commander -- a Hadi loyalist -- fled to Saudi Arabia before the assault, appealing to his troops to stand down. Elsewhere, the elite Yemeni units trained by Central Command to fight AQAP were bombed by the Saudis, thereby degraded and leaderless.

None of this is justified in public. No arguments are made. The strategy is not debated. The incongruities are not noted. The closest we have gotten to anything like an official statement was Secretary Ashton 'Ash' Carter's off-the-cuff comment this week, in response to a question, that AQAP gains in Yemen, thanks to the Saudi bombing, were a concern but that simply meant that the United States had the redouble its efforts to protect itself -- and that was what it was doing. In summary: the United States government knowingly follows a course that leads to a strengthening of a terrorist group which the President has declared the gravest threat to the United States. But don't worry good citizens, just make sure to take off your shoes at airports and sleep soundly knowing that the NSA will continue to monitor your electronic communications without warrant.

There are only two conclusions that can be drawn from this latest American misadventure in the Middle East. Either the Obama people have cynically exaggerated greatly the terrorist threat from AQAP -- or, they have recklessly endangered the American people.

A lot can happen in the coming months and years, and most of it is impossible to predict.
But there is one thing we can say with absolute certainty: al-Qaeda is far stronger today than six months ago, and it was because of decisions we took on behalf of our regional allies.