Authored by Joseph Solis-Mullen via The Mises Institute,
For over a decade, the dominant Western narrative on the Syrian War has been simple: a peaceful uprising turned into a brutal civil war because of Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless crackdown on his own people.
But in Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government, the Libertarian Institute’s latest book, William Van Wagenen methodically dismantles this mainstream version of events, exposing it as a convenient fiction crafted to justify one of the most disastrous regime change wars of the modern era.
His central thesis is clear: the war in Syria was not an organic revolution but a deliberate effort by Washington, Israel, and their regional partners to weaken Iran by toppling Assad’s government.
And when peaceful protests were hijacked by Islamist militants, instead of helping restore stability, the US and its allies deliberately prevented Assad from crushing the insurgency—even as it became dominated by al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups.
Now, years later, the result is a fractured Syria, ruled by jihadist warlords and occupied by foreign powers, with Israel consolidating its hold over strategic territory.
How and why did this disaster for Syria’s people come to pass? And why were the non-interventionists who called out Washington’s lies always right about the war and its likely outcome?
Regime Change: The Blueprint for Syria’s Destruction
Van Wagenen carefully documents how regime change in Syria had been a goal of US foreign policy long before the Arab Spring. The Bush administration set the groundwork, but the Obama administration accelerated the effort, seeing it as a way to strike a blow against Iran without a direct war.
His research confirms that the US and its allies—including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Türkiye—actively supported and armed the so-called “moderate opposition,” despite overwhelming evidence that jihadists controlled the rebellion almost from the start.
Instead of letting the Assad government restore order, Western intelligence agencies funneled billions in arms, logistics, and training to extremist groups, ensuring the war would drag on.
The leaked 2012 email from Jake Sullivan to Hillary Clinton (which Van Wagenen references) makes this reality undeniable: “AQ [Al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”
This stunning admission exposes the real nature of US policy in Syria: at the same time they fought them on the other side of the line in Iraq, Washington was directly supporting al-Qaeda-linked groups because they served its geopolitical interests.
Note: For those who haven’t read the Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton’s book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terror, this was a reversion to form rather than a policy innovation: Washington had, as a rule, favored the fundamentalist and radical Sunni sects over secular alternatives in the region going back decades.
A War Hijacked by Jihadists
One of the book’s most important contributions is its wholesale demolition of the “moderate rebel” myth. While establishment media outlets painted the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as a legitimate opposition force, Van Wagenen presents overwhelming evidence that the so-called moderates:
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Were always outnumbered and outgunned by Islamist factions;
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Frequently collaborated with or defected to al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra (later HTS);
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Received direct support from the CIA despite ties to terror groups
By 2013, ISIS and al-Nusra dominated the battlefield, and yet the US still prevented Assad from crushing the insurgency. As Van Wagenen documents, Washington:
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Pressured Jordan to allow jihadists free movement across its border;
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Supplied weapons through covert programs like Operation Timber Sycamore;
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Worked with Türkiye and Saudi Arabia to keep a steady flow of foreign fighters into Syria
This policy—arming the terrorists who had just a decade previously attacked the United States, and who were attacking US forces in Iraq at the same time—wasn’t just reckless, it was criminal.
Israel’s Role: Engineering Chaos to Consolidate Power
Another key point in Van Wagenen’s book is that Israel was a major driver behind the push for Assad’s overthrow. While the establishment narrative claims Israel was just a passive observer, the book shows that Tel Aviv had a clear strategic interest in Syria’s disintegration.
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Israel viewed Assad as Iran’s key ally and wanted him removed;
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Israeli intelligence worked closely with Western planners to fuel the insurgency;
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Once jihadists took over much of the country, Israel used this as justification for expanding its own territorial ambitions
Fast forward to today, and Van Wagenen’s prediction has come true: Syria is permanently fractured, and Israel has occupied key territories under the pretense that there is “no legitimate partner for peace.”
As Israeli officials have repeatedly argued, Syria is too unstable to negotiate with because groups like HTS (formerly al-Qaeda’s affiliate) control large parts of it. But this outcome was engineered by Israel and its allies, who spent years ensuring jihadists gained the upper hand over Assad’s forces. In effect, the war has allowed Israel to tighten its grip on occupied Golan and extend its influence into Syrian territory.
The Role of Bureaucratic Interests: Why Regime Change Always Wins
One of the most compelling themes in Van Wagenen’s book is the way he implicitly ties the Syrian War to broader structural issues in US foreign policy—particularly Public Choice Theory and the Iron Law of Bureaucracy. Public Choice Theory teaches us that politicians and government agencies act in their own self-interest, not necessarily in the interest of the public. A subset of this is the so-called “Iron Law of Bureaucracy,” which states that bureaucracies eventually prioritize their own growth and survival over their original mission. The CIA, State Department, and Pentagon all had institutional incentives to prolong the war, expand their budgets, and justify continued intervention, as Van Wagenen’s book shows.
This explains why, despite overwhelming evidence that arming jihadists would lead to disaster, the policy continued for years. The bureaucratic and political interests pushing for intervention simply had too much to gain from prolonging the war.
The Devastating Human Cost
While Van Wagenen’s book is primarily focused on the geopolitical machinations behind the war, he never loses sight of the human cost of Washington’s policies:
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Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed;
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Syria’s minority populations—Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Shiites—were slaughtered or driven into exile;
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Millions became refugees, fueling instability across the region and in Europe
Rather than bringing “freedom” to Syria, US intervention ensured endless war, ethnic cleansing, and the rise of brutal jihadist warlords.
Final Verdict: A Devastating Indictment of US Foreign Policy
Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government is a deeply-researched, compelling, and devastating critique of Western intervention in Syria. Van Wagenen’s book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand how Washington and its allies systematically engineered one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century. He methodically dismantles the legacy media’s lies, exposes the CIA’s reckless support for jihadists, and highlights Israel’s long-term strategic interest in Syria’s collapse.
For those who still believe that US intervention is a force for good in the world, this book is a wake-up call. Syria was not a “humanitarian” war. It was a calculated, brutal regime change operation that destroyed a nation for the sake of geopolitical gain. And, as Van Wagenen warns, despite the non-interventionists having always been right, it likely won’t be the last.
Washington must stop its meddling. This is a message particularly timely as Trump seems more and more inclined toward furthering US involvement in the region.
