Smell that? Yes, that's the magnificent aroma of Washington trying to cover its ass now that its brilliant strategy of "arming human scum and shipping them into Syria by the Toyota-load" has failed miserably.

Here is Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes talking about the horrible moral dilemma Washington faced while arming random (but "moderate"!) weirdos in Syria:

Coincidence or fate? What’s strange is, I met with the Syrian opposition, and often they would argue that we should work with al-Nusra, who we know is Al Qaeda. And I’m sympathetic if you’re in a neighborhood where al-Nusra is defending you against Assad. You want us to work with them. But let’s say a U.S. president does that, and then al-Nusra is using weapons that we gave them against us. That’s something you never recover from, right?

"We didn't want to directly/indirectly aid al-Nusra — and even if we sometimes did, by accident, the 'moderate' rebels made us do it!" We remember employing a similar line of argument ... in first grade.

Yeah, it's really really strange that the "rebels" would ask Mr. Rhodes to arm Al Qaeda, especially when the rebels are already arming Al Qaeda with weapons provided by the Pentagon. Even stranger that al-Nusra commanders have stated, on the record, that the U.S. is "on their side". It's not our fault! The "moderate" rebels made us do it!

And we love the ending anecdote about sympathizing with Al Qaeda, who, after all, sometimes aren't terrorists, but actually noble freedom fighters protecting Syrians from Assad's savagery.

Furthermore, what kind of self-described "moderate" would want extremists to have TOWs and other advanced U.S. weapons? Doesn't that make the whole "moderate" thing a bit more tricky to navigate?

Washington's grand vision for Syria (a failed state that can be used to destabilize Iran and train psychos to send eastward, with their final destination being Russia) has failed. And the ass-covering begins.

Of course, the outgoing administration still clings to the transparent lie that they only worked with "moderates", who sometimes turned out to be throat-slitting maniacs. But, years from now, when Obama officials are called out on their bullshit, you can bet that this will be their go-to excuse for siding with actual, in-the-flesh terrorists:

"The 'moderates' made us do it!"

These people are awful.