Americans can’t be trusted. They don’t keep their commitments. That is the message heard loud and clear throughout the world as a result of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

The most recent victims of it are rebel groups fighting both Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime and Islamic State terrorists.

Proclaiming that Assad had to go, the Obama administration began aiding the rebels about two years ago. The rise of the Islamic State lent new urgency to that assistance, because many of the rebels also oppose the IS.

Then, a few days ago, the Russian military began taking an active role in bolstering Assad. Its first airstrikes were against the very rebel groups we have been supporting.

U.S. aid since then has been restricted to a few airdrops of supplies. There are no plans to give the rebels weapons for defense against Russian warplanes.

“We’ve aligned ourselves to these guys, we trained them and paid them and sent them off to battle, and when the going gets tough, we’re not there,” commented one defense analyst.

Indeed.

But given Obama’s record, one has to wonder why on earth the rebels ever thought they could trust us.