Unlike the others who’d been cheered by capturing a foreign jihadi, Fick thinks it’s an ominous development. While Fick had never been avidly pro-war, he’d always radiated quiet confidence about the Americans—at least the Marines—reaching their basic objective: regime change. The arrival of Syrians has shaken him. “Isn’t this the absolute opposite of what we wanted to have happen here?” he asks. “I can see this effort”—as he refers to the war—“becoming seriously complicated.”
