"Anti-war" argument #1: Evil people want the U.S. to intervene

Note: for a list of arguments and responses (one per post) and more background on why I'm doing this, see this index page.

In a widely shared article (at least as far as my Facebook news feed is concerned), the legendary Robert Fisk remarks that Obama is "fighting on al-Qa’ida’s side." The rest of the article is not really worth commenting on; clearly the point is to use a catchy shocking headline that will lead to lots of sharing. In any case, I'll focus on the argument.

Stripped down to its bare bones, the argument is:

1. al-Qa’ida is against the Syrian regime

2. The U.S. is against the Syrian regime {and about to confront it even more directly than it had before}

3. Therefore the U.S. is on al-Qa’ida's side

4. al-Qa’ida are the bad guys so the U.S. is on the bad guys' side

Alternatively, 4'. al-Qa’ida is an enemy of the U.S. so the U.S. is contradicting itself / being hypocritical

I'll focus on 3 and 4. The problem here is that this approach takes an overly manichean view of the world. It reminds me of 2006, when, during Israel's war on Hezbollah, anyone who called Hassan Nasrallah out for making a decision to go to war without asking the Lebanese state - or anyone for that matter - for their opinion was told: "so you're with Israel?"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" doesn't work past 4th grade. Especially not in the Arab world, otherwise we would all be friends - or maybe enemies.

One last point: to be a little bit more philosophical about it, a bad person or a person who does not have your best interest at heart wanting you to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't do that thing. It might mean you should be more careful but that can't be the only element entering your calculus.

PS: @MaxBlumenthal makes a similar but implicit point with Israel and AIPAC instead of al-Qa’ida here. He tries to constitute two camps: the pro-war camps with evil people like AIPAC, and the good people in the anti-war camp. I think the same counterarguments apply. Blumenthal also makes other better points that I don't have the time or space to address here.