isf defectors who went on to join isis, you know in the very beginning were former saddam hussein cronies. how would that factor into al douri s ability to make friends with them? well he was probably leading the charge and uniting the two groups. we had kicked the army of saddam hussein out of iraq at least those that wouldn t reconcile with the new regime. during the surge of 2007 2008 we defeated most of al qaeda in iraq and kicked it across the border as well. in syria, they joined together. they realized that the enemy of my enemy is my temporary friend at least. what al douri brought to isis was a brutal sense of strategy. you could sense that last year as they went first into anbar province then took mosul, then headed down to baghdad. there was a real sense of strategy and a plan behind what they were doing. i think that s what al douri
being left there at all. we had a vacuum. we left we pulled out, we said, isn t this great we re no longer in iraq? what happened is that isil and iran are in for the fight to see who s going to be the caliphate of that area. and so when there s a leadership vacuum and vacuum of forces iran is always willing to go in there. and that s the problem. just because iran is fighting isil like netanyahu said the enemy of my enemy is not my friend the enemy of my enemy can still be my enemy. but they see, iraqis see, the u.s. is dealing and wheeling with iran at negotiation table. they say you can t say we shouldn t be involved with iran when you re cutting deals with the ayatollahs. the marco rubio and jeb bush reality. you are friends of both. who are you backing? and how is that dynamic playing out here in florida? i m enthusiastically in favor
going through the equivalent of europe s 30-year war. you re seeing religious divisions, state divisions, non-state groups all battling. essentially in that kind of a situation, there s going to be a lot of fluidity in terms of what alliances, contemporarytemporary coalitions are going to happen. we re not going to run that any more than you can run french revolution to switch metaphors in the period after 1789. it takes two or three decades for these things to work themselves through. will we be involved in one group and another group and the enemy of my enemy, i think yes. what do you make of the death murder of boris nemtsov. is there anything to say about it? i think we are seeing what a brutal regime this is. a regime that i think is stripped more and more of any shred of legitimacy it faces, that it could have. i think that a lot comes down to whether you re basically an optimist or a pessimist.
we re not going to run that any more than you can run french revolution to switch metaphors in the period. it takes decades to work through. will we be involved in one group and another group and the enemy of my enemy, i think yes. what do you make of the death murder of boris nemtsov. is there anything to say about it? i think we are seeing what a brutal regime this is. a regime that i think is stripped more and more of any shred of legitimacy it faces, that it could have. i think that a lot comes down to basically an optimist or pessimist. critics generally pessimistic, authoritarianism on the march. the crucial divide between them and obama, i think obama is basically an optimist. i think he basically believes economic forces forces of globalization will ultimately make a regime like putin not be able to sustain itself forever
political process. our thanks to jim acosta for that report. joining me now here in new york fareed zakaria host of fareed zakaria. as if it it could get any more complicated. the enemy of my enemy is a dictator. it s not like the white house can call syria and say thanks for this, but to an extent was this inevitable by the u.s. saying we re not going get involved with air strikes right now by saying the response will be very, very limited. does that create a vacuum where syria and iraq were bound to get involved? i think they were bound to get involved anyway and they have been involved for the last several years. we have to remember that we think of the middle east in terms of borders that are real and hard and states and we think of it in terms of dictators and democrats. what s really happening in that part of the world is a sectarian war between the should i as and the sunnis and this crosses all borders so that isis is battling the shia government in baghdad. it s battling w