On Monday, September 22, the current president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, joined the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, on stage for a discussion at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City. The summit is one of the most prestigious global affairs forums in the world and by its own account “convenes the world’s most prominent business, government, and nonprofit leaders to foster dialogue and enable effective partnerships for positive social impact.”

It was a surreal moment because twenty years ago, during Iraq War II, these men were enemies. Once upon a time, al-Sharaa was known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a foot soldier in Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and Petraeus was known as US Army General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. In fact, it was a moment that revealed the extent to which the U.S. empire has become an inherently treasonous project.

It was Al Qaeda that knocked down the World Trade Center towers and hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. And it was Al Qaeda that formed the radical edge of the Sunni-based insurgency during Iraq War II that killed approximately 4,000 of the 4,500 U.S. troops who died in that war. Al-Jolani fought in Iraq from 2003 until he was captured and imprisoned by U.S. forces in 2006. He was released from prison in 2011 for reasons still classified. Then, in 2012, he went to Syria to form and lead al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, the al-Nusra Front.

Meanwhile, Petraeus was promoted to a Four-Star General, directed the 2007 “Surge” in Iraq, served as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from 2010–2011, and then became director of the CIA in 2011. The CIA runs the Counterterrorism Mission Center, which officially exists to prevent groups like Al Qaeda from knocking down our towers. Of course, the CIA also runs the Special Activities Division, which does special things like Operation “Timber Sycamore,” which funneled billions of dollars in weapons and support to the insurgency waged against the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad. The al-Nusra Front was on the front in that fight.

So, Americans watching al-Sharaa and Petraeus share the stage might feel like the downtrodden animals in the final moment of George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

In similar fashion, an American beholding the Concordia sit down might ponder, who’s the terrorist and who’s the counterterrorist?

Or, since Israel is the primary reason our government hates Iran and their Shi’ite allies more than Al Qaeda and other Sunni-based Jihad organizationsm, Americans might wonder if perhaps Israel’s Mossad has high-definition videos of Petraeus forcibly violating minors. This is a man, after all, who gave his mistress above top-secret information in exchange for her writing a very nice book about him, so he’s proven very easy to manipulate. Essentially, Washington has completely outsourced its Middle East foreign policy to Israel. Its enemies become our enemies while our enemies become its assets.

Take al-Jolani. He killed U.S. soldiers in Iraq but was released from U.S. military custody and allowed to launch the al-Nusra Front in Syria. He was funded by the CIA, broke ties with Al Qaeda and merged his group with other Islamist factions to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department from 2018 until it conquered Syria last year.

During his struggle in Syria, he began curating a more palatable image for Western audiences. He stopped using his insurgent name “al-Jolani” and embraced his “al-Sharaa” birth name. He began wearing a suit. And the Western information warfare apparatus began portraying him as an evolving statesman. Recall that we were told for yours one cannot “negotiate with terrorists” and that our government spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people over at most 400 Arab fighters hiding out in Afghanistan. Turns out our government can do more than negotiate with such people. It can outright partner with them.

On Monday, al-Sharaa also met with Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio. On Wednesday, September 24, he addressed the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the first Syrian president to do so since 1967. He palled around with UN dignitaries and even President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania made a surprise visit to say hello to him. He had previously met with Trump in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May.

Imagine the victims of English Socialism in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four watching Big Brother shake hands with Emmanuel Goldstein. That would have been too crazy for fiction. But here is a former Al Qaeda commander being feted by the US foreign policy elite in New York City, less than ten miles from the site of the former World Trade Center towers, after having been groomed for power and fully backed by the West in his takeover of Syria. That sure looks like a violation of the Constitution’s Article III, Section 3 treason prohibition. No wonder Slate magazine reported it as the “biggest plot twist in history.”

Currently, Syrian forces are slaughtering Druze, Alawites, and Christians. The Shia are probably next. But at the end of his talk with al-Sharaa at Concordia, Petraeus said, “We wish you strength and wisdom in the difficult work ahead. We obviously hope for your success al-Sharaa, because at the end of the day, your success is our success.”

Get that? The success of Sunni-based jihad is American success. Petraeus left out the crucial element of his logic: Sunni-based jihad’s success is Israel’s success, and America does what Israel wants. With a full-scale war with Iran in the offing, this is important to keep in mind.

Concordia was the Roman goddess of harmony. Our national government has achieved a shocking level of harmony with the only real enemy of the American people. Because of course it has. The domestic population is always perceived by its government as an enemy and when the enemy of your enemy is also vital to Israeli grand strategy, that’s considered a win.

This was originally featured at Antiwar.com and is republished with permission.