"ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror"—Michael Weiss on the Syrian Quagmire

Erratic American policy toward ISIS and Syria may have exacerbated a complex, intractable conflict.

Originally published on Oct 15, 2015

"I'm out of solutions here," says Michael Weiss, a senior editor at The Daily Beast and co-author of the New York Times bestseller, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, widely viewed as the most comprehensive study of the brutal Islamist entity that controls a wide swath of land between Iraq and Syria.

Speaking with Reason TV about U.S. involvement in the disastrous Syrian civil war, Weiss laments, "I can speak glibly about no-fly zones, but at this point I just understand this administration is never going to do anything to rescue the Syrian people or prevent Assad, Iran, and Russia from killing everybody they want to."

Weiss, a foreign affairs reporter with extensive experience covering the Middle East and Russia, believes that the U.S. had options besides war that could have prevented the refugee crisis becoming the global fiasco it is today. But, charges Weiss, President Obama's determination to achieve a nuclear deal with Iran meant he refused to pursue policies that might disrupt Assad's Syria. 

With Russian jets bombing non-ISIS rebel groups in Syria and Obama leaving office in early 2017, Weiss "guarantees the following: Assad will still be in Damascus. ISIS will still be in Syria [and] eventually Russia will bomb ISIS, but they haven't really been doing it yet."

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. Camera by Jim Epstein with help from Dan Rogenstein.