When the Russians started flying from Latakia on September 30 it put the Syrian opposition in a decisively precarious situation.

Whereas the Syrian air force was largely out of date and relied on replacement parts and continual maintenance to remain viable, Moscow brought one of the most formidable sky attacks on the planet to a fight against rebels with zero air capability and exceptionally limited capacity to defend themselves against an aerial assault.

Starting in October, the Russian Defense Ministry began posting video clips (hundreds of them) depicting strikes on a variety of rebel and militant targets and The Kremlin also went out of its way to capture full color, HD footage of Su-34s and long-range bombers in action over Syria where the opposition was quite simply powerless to defend itself.

For about a month (sometime between mid-November and mid-December) it appeared that President Obama was right. The fanfare around the initial wave of Russian airstrikes had subsided and the push north to Aleppo appeared to have stalled. The "quagmire" it seemed, was real. Then, suddenly, Hezbollah surrounded Aleppo and reports indicated the Russian air force had implemented what amounts to a scorched earth policy when it comes to the militants battling Iranian forces.

Once it became apparent that the country's largest city would soon be recaptured by forces loyal to Assad, both Turkey and Saudi Arabia began to weigh their options. A ground assault by Ankara and Riyadh would be a veritable nightmare for the US and the West. It would invariably devolve into a direct conflict with Iranian forces and the first time a Russian jet hit Saudi or Turkish troops the world would be plunged into a global conflict with the potential to drag every nation in the developed world to war.

So far, the Turks and the Saudis haven’t invaded, although Ankara is now shelling the YPG in the Azaz corridor in an effort to roll back Kurdish efforts to consolidate border gains. According to Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, Riyadh’s next move may be to introduce surface-to-air missiles so that the rebels will be able to defend themselves against the Russian air attack.

“Is Saudi Arabia in favor of supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels?,” Der Spiegel asked al-Jubeir on Friday. Here was the minister’s response:

Yes. We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground . It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralize the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there. This has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands.

Now obviously, the whole “dropping chemicals” line is a ruse. The only thing introducing advanced surface-to-air missiles would do is allow the opposition to shoot at Russian air power and that’s completely at odds with the following response al-Jubeir gave when asked about the kingdom’s relationship with the Russians:

Other than our disagreement over Syria, I would say our relationship with Russia is very good and we are seeking to broaden and deepen it. Twenty million Russians are Muslims. Like Russia, we have an interest in fighting radicalism and extremism. We both have an interest in stable energy markets. Even the disagreement over Syria is more of a tactical one than a strategic one. We both want a unified Syria that is stable in which all Syrians enjoy equal rights.

No, no you both do not want that. Syria was already a state where citizens enjoyed equal rights, loosely speaking. That’s not to say that Assad tolerated much in the way of dissent when it came to his grip on power, but when it came to Mid-East states where different sects and religions could live alongside one another, things were going ok in Syria before Riyadh, Washington, Doha, and Ankara decided to play on fears of Iranian influence to whip impoverished Sunnis into a sectarian frenzy.

The hypocrisy and outright absurdity only gets worse from there (in fact, this is one of the most egregious interviews in recent memory with a Saudi official) and we’ve included some of the “highlights” (or “lowlights” as it were) below, but the point here is that the Saudis appear set to supply surface-to-air missiles to the rebels. We’re not sure how today’s announced “ceasefire” will ultimately affect those plans, but it’s worth noting that when the US, Turkey and the Saudis supplied TOWs to the opposition in an effort to combat the advance of pro-government armored vehicles, the FSA ended up using one of the weapons to destroy a Russian search and rescue helicopter. Footage of that effort was posted by the FSA on YouTube.

Does Saudi Arabia really believe the best idea is to supply the rebels with the capability to shoot at the Russian air force? At what point do Washington’s Sunni allies admit that this has been a giant mistake that’s cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people? Perhaps most importantly, when will the US and NATO finally admit that they are on the wrong side of the sectarian divide and thus on the wrong side of history? Does The Pentagon really want to get behind arming Sunni extremists (who espouse the same ideology as ISIS and al-Nusra) with weapons to shoot down Russian warplanes?

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the traditional distinction between the “good” guys and the “bad” guys no longer holds. Long live the "good" guys - whoever they are.

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Excerpts from Adel al-Jubeir's interview with Der Spiegel (try not to laugh):