How Many Different Enemies Can US Have at Once?

After al-Qaeda lost the strategic town of Morek to the Syrian military yesterday, the Assad forces seem to have an eye on attempting to retake Aleppo, a city that’s been contested for years now, and is in virtual ruins.

The “moderate” Syrian rebels are seeing this as a desperate pretext for the US military to get involved and stop the Assad advance, saying the loss of Aleppo would close of supply routes into Turkey.

They’ve been pushing the US for a long time to get involved in a war against Assad, but with the Pentagon already fighting ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, it’s hard to imagine they could add the Assad forces to their active enemies right now, even if they’re presenting that as a long-term goal.

That’s doubly true because the “moderate” rebels have next to no territory and a comparatively small combat force, meaning the US is increasingly aligning itself against materially everybody in Syria, with an eye toward installing a faction that by and large does not exist.