Former CIA boss and 4-star general David Petraeus – who still (believe it or not) holds a lot of sway in Washington – suggests we should arm Al Qaeda to fight ISIS.

Members of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria have a surprising advocate in the corridors of American power: retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus. The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria, four sources familiar with the conversations, including one person who spoke to Petraeus directly, told The Daily Beast.

He’s not alone …

As we’ve previously shown, other mainstream American figures support arming Al Qaeda … and ISIS.

Initially, Barak Mendelsohn – an Associate Professor of Political Science at Haverford College, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and a five year veteran of the Israeli army – argues in the Council on Foreign Relations’ publication Foreign Affairs that the U.S. should support Al Qaeda … as a way to counter ISIS:

The instability in the Middle East following the Arab revolutions and the meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) require that Washington rethink its policy toward al Qaeda, particularly its targeting of Zawahiri. ***

Destabilizing al Qaeda at this time may in fact work against U.S. efforts to defeat ISIS.

Many mainstream players are suggesting that Al Nusra – the main Al Qaeda group in Syria – “re-brand”, so that it can pretend it is moderate … and so receive direct U.S. backing. See this, this, this, this, thisand this.

Not to be outdone, influential New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman asks if we should arm ISIS to counter Iranian influence.

And we actually ARE supporting ISIS to some extent:

Truly, America’s foreign policy is insane.