With the Russians on the ground at Latakia shoring up the Assad regime and with tensions between Washington and Moscow at a fever pitch over the Kremlin’s involvement, the Pentagon now says US boots are officially on the ground in Syria - you know, to help fight ISIS...

BREAKING: Defense officials tell NBC News that US special ops. forces are on ground in Syria assisting Kurdish forces in fight against ISIS — CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) September 16, 2015

Of course, if true, the whole "assisting Kurdish forces" won't go over well with Turkey's Erdogan, the US's brand new coalition partner against ISIS who has made no secret of his distrust for the YPG.

Then again, there had to be some pretext for an imminent escalation with Russia and since it's all a convoluted, bloody mess at this point, "helping Kurdish forces" is just as good as any other excuse we suppose.