The last MoA dispatch on Syria concluded:

The U.S. lost the game. It should take up the Russian offer or leave the table.

Despite the bickering from the usual neocon suspects the Obama administration is taking that advice and officially throws the towel:

Mr. Obama’s advisers say there is little they can do to change the situation in the near term. Proposals are being drafted for meetings in coming days, but Mr. Obama has made clear he is not willing to confront the Russians and risk an escalation, nor does he have a broad new strategy to resolve the conflict or defeat the Islamic State.

“There isn’t a solution at this point that they’re going to get done on their watch,” said Michael McFaul, a former White House adviser to Mr. Obama who later served as ambassador to Russia before returning to Stanford University. “They’re just going to contain it.”

The Obama administration is, for now, giving up on official "regime change" training ops in Syria and is unlikely to go for more intense fighting against the Islamic State. But that is only the official position. Unofficially, we can safely assume, the CIA and various shady Pentagon entities will continue their mischief in Syria and in Iraq.

But thanks to the Russians, it is now for all to see that the U.S. was never serious about fighting the Islamic State or about reigning in al-Qaeda and other Jihadis in Syria. While the U.S. has flown a total of 137 serious air attacks in Syria in some thirteen month the Russians delivered 148 airstrikes within just one week.

The public, as reflected in the comments on U.S. media pages, has finally recognized that the U.S. is not serious in fighting against or has even willingly furthered the growth of the Jihadi phenomenon. Indeed Obama recently admitted as much. He was asked why the U.S. did not counter the Islamic State when it was still small:

The reason, the president added, “that we did not just start taking a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that would have taken the pressure off of [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal] al-Maliki.

Obama wanted "regime change" in Iraq and got it (despite Maliki winning a record number of votes) by letting the Islamic State grow enough to seriously threaten the Iraqi state. Only then did the U.S. intervene and only enough to lecture the Islamic State on how far it is "allowed" to grow.

But such "doing nothing" is not the only way the Obama administration has helped the growth of ISIS. The Treasury Department is asking from where the Islamic State received all the Toyota Hilux cruisers it uses as weapon platforms. The Treasury will not have to look very far. The answer can be found via a simple web-search or nearby in the State Department:

Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.

Hiluxes were on the Free Syrian Army's wish list. Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition, is a fan of the truck.

"Specific equipment like the Toyota Hiluxes are what we refer to as force enablers for the moderate opposition forces on the ground," he adds. Shahbander says the US-supplied pickups will be delivering troops and supplies into battle. Some of the fleet will even become battlefield weapons.

The British government delivered similar equipment as did the Turks and the U.S. Gulf allies. Guess where all those cars ended up. It now seems the so called Free Syrian Army was and is nothing but a weapon transfer shop to deliver weapons and equipment to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

The official delivery of "non-lethal aid" which then becomes "battlefield weapons" may now end but the "unofficial" CIA program and its 10,000 mercenaries will very likely continue their war on Syria. If only because the CIA like the Pentagon is seriously pissed about the way the Russians moved into the game:

‏@nancyayoussef
Overheard at the Pentagon: "Right now, we are Putin's prison bitch."

If the Obama administration would really "let the Russians do their thing" why is there a need for Obama's Defense Secretary Carter to threaten Russia with terrorism:

“This will have consequences for Russia itself, which is rightly fearful of attacks. In coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer from casualties.”

Like usual the CIA will hide its nefarious deeds behind some "allies" who will arrange for the terrorism in Russia and will increase the delivery of weapons to their "moderate" Jihadi mercenaries in Syria:

[The well-placed official] said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organisations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to three rebel alliances – Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.

That "well-placed official" made a funny joke but the BBC reporter probably did not (want to) catch it. How can you NOT supply to al-Nusra but only to Jaysh al-Fatah when al-Nusra is THE main component of the Jaysh al-Fatah alliance?

Even Syria experts now admit that the major weapon flow was and is always in the direction of the worst Jihadis:

@joshua_landis
Probably 70% of US arms sent into Syria have ended up in Nusra hands. Idriss, Hazm, & Company 30 all had arms taken.

And that percentage only holds for the weapons delivered over the table in official programs. It is unlikely to hold for the additional 120mm mortars the Pentagon still plans to move in. Of the weapons delivered under the table some 100% likely was sold off to or taken by the Jihadis. The 500 TOWs the Saudis claim to send now will surely do some significant damage to the Syrian army. But they will end up with al-Qaeda and will help it and the Islamic State to gain more ground from what is left of the "moderate" mercenaries.

An increased weapon flow is not the only way the CIA and its "allies" will continue to stir the pod:

@michaelh992
Some sources inside the #FSA claim the US is communicating with them, informing them of upcoming Russian airstrikes (unconfirmed)

If true, and I tend to believe it is, the Pentagon and/or CIA continues to give tactical advice about the Russian and Syrian Army's moves and positions.

While the Saudis said, via the BBC above, that they will increase the delivery of anti-tank weapons to Syria we can also expect that Qatar will throw in additional anti-air manpads, as it did in 2013, to have some Russian helicopters shot down. But unlike the Syrian army which lost helicopters to the then unexpected Qatari manpads the Russian army is prepared for this (overrated) threat. Video shows the armored Russian Mi-24P combat helicopters flying low and fast over Syria and using a copious amount of decoy flares while eliminating panicking terrorists (vid).

The 4+1 coalition operations rooms in Baghdad, Damascus and Lebanon, led by a Russian Lieutenant General, will not only collect and assess intelligence but will also make operational plans for the wider fight against the Islamic State and other terrorists. One task the command has is surely to stop the weapon flow to the terrorists.

So far the weapons flowed freely through Turkey and Jordan and nothing has been done to interrupt the flow within those countries. That was, in my view, always a major mistake. The "western" spies, the weapon merchants and the various Jihadi militia bosses live safely in their hotels in Gaziantep or Amman. That will have to end and the weapon convoys will have to be destroyed or sabotaged before they reach Syria or Iraq. Every bullet that passes the borders may well kill another Iraq, Syrian or Russian soldier, another Iranian general or innocent civilians. Stop the bullets delivery and the killing will, over time, stop too.

If Jordan and Turkey are not willing to cease and desist delivering arms and ammunition to the Jihadis they should at least feel some of the pains these goods cause. Theirs, and the Saudis, resources and political will are not endless.