The distinguished armchair warriors at Foreign Policy are now deeply concerned about the lack of "moderate" rebels currently operating in Syria. (Perhaps because even Washington now admits that the largest coalition of "rebels" consists mainly of extremists and Al-Qaeda affiliates.)
But Mr. Blumenthal correctly points out that the "serious" foreign policy thinkers — the folks at the de facto NATO think tank, "Atlantic Council", for example — have never tried to disguise their admiration for clearly-not-moderate rebels.
Here's the Atlantic Council article Blumenthal is referring to, from April 3, 2015:
Last weekend, international headlines blared that Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, had captured the northern Syrian city of Idlib from Assad regime forces... Jabhat al-Nusra was a significant contributor in the offensive, but it was not the dominant actor. Out of the 6,000 Jaish al-Fatah fighters who joined the capture of Idlib, only 1,500 came from Nusra...As things stand, I must admit begrudgingly that Jaish al-Fatah has fulfilled many goals of the Syrian revolution in Idlib, thereby claiming a greater share of revolutionary legitimacy.In other words: "Al-Qaeda is bad, but when they align themselves with extremists who are not technically 'Al-Qaeda' they can be tolerated, and when they capture Syrian cities, they are legitimate."
In this context it's not surprising that Moscow has completely given up trying to convince Washington that suicide bombings are bad. The United States and its stable of "intellectuals" have never hidden their "conditional" support for terrorists.
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