Startling new evidence reveals a major to-do list item for the incoming Trump administration: a formal inquiry, with subpoena power, on the process by which the U.S. handled the “Syrian rebels” who turned into ISIS.  In a landmark New Year’s Day post on Conservative Treehouse, Sundance lays out the pieces of a puzzle indicating that Obama administration blundering (or was it intentional?) fostered and supported the creation of ISIS and unintentionally created the opening for Russia to operate in Syria and thereby attain the long sought Mediterranean naval base, and also an air base in the Middle East.

The cast of characters is led by John Kerry, whose leaked audio recording of a meeting last fall near the U.N., is the single biggest piece of smoking-gun evidence.  But along the way, we meet NeverTrumps like Adam Kinzinger; John McCain; and, very provocatively, the NeverTrump designated spoiler, Evan McMullin, long before he was put forward as a Trump-preventer.

I won’t even begin to lay out the complicated case Sundance has assembled.  Far better for you to read the entire post (it’s long) and try to listen to the audio recording.  They are a bit rough and hard to follow, so I am copying a transcript (with comments) that has been prepared of the key moments in the audio recording by Sheila Coombs of Knowterrorists, an “antiwar” site:

I have transcribed Kerry’s statement from the recording which I have listened to in full as Kerry talks to Syrian dissidents and ex-pats who, like those of Iraqi and Libya before them, are prepared to do deals with the devil to get the regime change they desire.

One can hear John Kerry endeavouring to placate these people by discussing how he has promoted the use of force in Syria: “For us politically where you have a Congress who will not authorise our use of force. Congress will not pass that and so we’re trying to help the best way we can, but we finally decided the best thing we can do is try to find a way with a political solution where the opposition is part of the government and you can have an election.” (I suppose this will be like the election they set up just after they destroyed Libya and the BBC and Al Jazeera went into overdrive touting it as ‘democracy’ having been achieved in Libya – oh yeah, that worked really well didn’t it?)

He also says: “I think you’re looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument. I’ve argued for use of force. I stood up. I’m the guy who stood up and announced we’re going to attack Assad because of the weapons, and then you know things evolved into a different process.” He’s referring to the diplomatic process.

Crucially he lets slip that “Russia is invited in by the legitimate regime”

(N.B.Russia also went to the UN for a resolution to undertake action in Syria – that’s UN Resolution 2249)

He responds to their frustrations by saying “Look, I get it, a lot of us wish there was an enforcement mechanism right now, a lot of us have been fighting for one, but we don’t have one in that sense so we’re trying to persue diplomacy, and I understand the frustration, you have nobody more frustrated about it than we are.”

He sees the problem as being – I quote: “A lot of Americans don’t believe we should be sending young Americans to die in another country – that’s the problem”

He states: “Al Nusra and DAESH both make it hard because you have this extreme element out there and unfortunately some of the opposition is already kind of chosen to work with them”. He admits this but has sent TOW missiles and in April this year sent 3,000 tons of weapons during a ceasefire to the ‘opposition’ – a list is detailed in Janes Military Index.

He wanted no Syrian or Russian planes to fly, but US planes could fly despite having killed 62 Syrian Arab Army soldiers as they were defending Deir Ezzor from DAESH. He said the deal the US wanted was “Seven days consecutive of calm before we talk about focussing on DAESH and and Nusra”.

The Syrians push Kerry for more action. They state categorically that the Russians or Syrians hit the aid convoy in Aleppo despite no evidence of this and the convoy emanting from a government held area. They are annoyed that the Russians are targetting the so called ‘Syria Civil Defence Force’ aka The White Helmets, who were first on the scene, who put out a video immediately and who are well known to be working with Al Nursa and ISIS in Syria. The White Helmets’ leader Raed Saleh was been barred from the US for his ‘links to extremism’ and yet USAID has given them $23 million. The White Helmets operate only in rebel held areas – hmmm.

One Syrian guy is then pushing Kerry to get the US to attack Hezbollah fighters whereupon Kerry admits that “Hezbollah is not attacking the US.” This Syrian guy is annoyed that Russia is only attacking the Sunni extremists, (mostly foreign fighters as the Syrian army is made up of a majority of Sunnis). It is the mostly foreign Whabbaist Sunni extremists who are being targeted by the Syrian Army and Russia, but this guy is trying to persuade Kerry to attack Hezbollah and Iranian forces who are also combatting the Sunni Whahabbist extremist jihadis. To appease this guy Kerry states that Hezbollah is – quote “Targetted by the opposition we are arming and training”

He says to one woman pushing him – “I think we’ve been putting an extraordinary amount of arms in – haven’t we?” -to an aid who confirms this and that there are weapons entering Syria from other sources. Kerry states “Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia – huge amount of weapons.” All of these are US allies.

The full extent of the story will require a lot more evidence to nail down.  But what the heck was Evan McMullin, former CIA spook, doing in Turkey with NeverTrump Adam Kinzinger in 2014, discussing aid to “Syrian rebels”?

Hat tip: Clarice Feldman