America should not aid Islamic radicals fighting the Islamic State (who are also Islamic radicals).

ISIS is a brutal radical fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group who tortures and kills anyone who doesn't think like it does.  But whom are they fighting?

Well, in Iraq, they are fighting the Iraqi government.  Sort of.  There was an article on the Voice of America website with the curious headline, "Tikrit Offensive: Where's the US?"  Iraqi armed forces are massing in the thousands to retake the town of Tikrit from ISIS.  But the U.S. is nowhere to be seen.  Why?

Michael Weiss, the coauthor of the book ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, said the fighting component on the ground in Tikrit is not being led by Iraqi Security Forces.

"It’s being led by Shi'ite militia groups built, trained, controlled by Iran," Weiss said. "The proof in the pudding is that Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds force of the Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran--a designated terrorist organization--was at Camp Speicher rallying the troops.”

A senior U.S. military official acknowledged to VOA Monday that Iranian forces are in Tikrit helping with the offensive, and that as long as the Iranians are there, the U.S. will not get involved.

The Iranian presence among Iraqi Shi'ite militias has placed the U.S. in an "awkward" position, according to a senior U.S. military official, but the U.S. has little say in the matter because Iraq ultimately gets to choose who it partners with in the fight against the Islamic State.

"Our only other option is to pack up and leave," the official said. "Sometimes it's better to be in the mix than not." Weiss fears that even if Islamic State militants could be ousted from Iraq, sectarian violence between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds could spiral even further out of control.

The Shiite militias are every bit as brutal as ISIS, slaughtering Sunnis for no other reason than being Sunni.  And these militias, inside Iraq, are under the direct command of Iran, a terrorist state.  We shouldn't be giving weapons to these people.  We shouldn't have anything to do with them.

Meanwhile, in Syria, a "moderate" rebel group collapsed when it was attacked by the Al Nusra front, an al-Qaeda affiliated rebel group.

US policy towards Syria has suffered a new blow with the dissolution of the Hazm movement, its favoured and best-known rebel group – raising tough questions about Washington’s strategy and limiting its future options. Hazm is one of several dozen Syrian rebel groups that have received US anti-tank Tow missiles and training in the past and has been described as the “poster boy” for the moderate opposition at a time when attention is focused sharply on Isis.

Video footage showed JAN fighters [Jan is the local al Qaeda franchise] posing with Tow missiles captured when it overran Hazm HQ in Idlib.

So sophisticated TOW anti-tank missiles, made in America, are now in the hands of al-Qaeda, as well as other U.S. weaponry.  We keep arming "moderate" rebels in Syria, and the same thing keeps happening.

I say let's stop arming groups in Syria and Iraq (with one exception), because all sides are equally bad.  Here's what I recommend:

1) Keep giving arms to the Kurds so they can defend their territory.  They are the one group fighting who do not commit systemic human rights abuses, and they are relatively tolerant.  But no more weapons or training to the Syrian rebels (which ends up with al-Qaeda) or the Iraqi army (which ends up with Iran).

2) If ISIS opens terrorist training camps in Iraq or Syria, bomb them immediately.

3) Arm enemies of radical Islamic fanatics who aren't themselves radical Islamic fanatics – Israel, Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya come to mind.

4) Keep drone video game diplomacy going everywhere 24/7 – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and yes, even in Iraq and Syria, where we can eliminate radical Islamists without arming other radical Islamists.

5) Don't let in any more "refugees" from Arab states, and expel the ones we have.

6) Build a double-layer razor-tipped fence on our borders.

7) Infiltrate and monitor our own radical Muslim community, and keep a special eye on those burka-wearing sales associates at Abercrombie & Fitch.

So we can still fight radical Islam, but not do so by giving arms to other terrorist groups who would use our weapons against us.  People in the diplomatic and intelligence community call this the "Alien vs. Predator" strategy.  When you have two evil opponents fighting each other, don't give supplies to either side, and don't get directly involved.

Pedro Gonzales is the editor of Newsmachete.com, the conservative news site.