US Treasury sanctions an Assad ally who buys oil from the caliphate.
The claim by many foreign-policy sophisticates is that while Syria’s Bashar Assad may be awful, at least he’s fighting Islamic State.
 The reality is that Assad is devoting most of his military effort to fight Sunni opponents of his regime other than Islamic State.
Until he defeats those other rebels, Islamic State is useful precisely because it makes him appear to be more tolerable to many in the West.
Well, now we have new evidence of Assad’s complicity with Islamic State. On Wednesday the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned four individuals and six entities providing support to the Syrian regime.
They include Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, whom Treasury describes as a “wealthy Russian businessman” and “long-time World Chess Federation president.” Russia’s assistance to Assad is no secret, but President Obama has been trying to get Vladimir Putin to cooperate in a diplomatic settlement. The Ilyumzhinov sanction suggests the U.S. doesn’t expect much progress.
The bigger news is the sanction of George Haswani, whom Treasury identifies as “a Syrian businessman who serves as a middleman for oil purchases by the Syrian regime from ISIL,” another name for Islamic State. The European Union added Haswani to its sanctions list in March. Oil sales are one of Islamic State’s main sources of financing, and U.S. air strikes have recently been targeting its oil convoys. If Haswani is buying oil from Islamic State, then Assad is essentially financing the terrorist caliphate that is supposedly his mortal enemy.
It’s more accurate to call Islamic State and the Assad regime in Damascus symbiotic enemies who play off each other to maintain their bases of power. The U.S. needs a strategy that ultimately defeats both of them.