Until now, US policy has boiled down to pinprick bombings against Sunni extremists and an effort to train some 5,000 Syrian “moderate oppositionists,” who presumably would defeat the other Sunnis, vanquish President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, and finally march victoriously into Damascus – perhaps with a flyover by US aircrafts. Thus, the US has continued to do the wrong – or at best inadequate – thing: listening to and, worse, believing those who have been part of the problem.