WORLD_ Isis in Kobani: Embattled town becomes focal point for the West’s fear of involvement in Syria

THE INDEPENDENT

Isis in Kobani: Embattled town becomes focal point for the West’s fear of involvement in Syria

Chuck Hagel says creating a safe zone is not ‘actively being considered’ by the US government

Bradley Klapper
Sunday 12 October 2014

The Obama administration’s promise to limit US military engagement with Isis militants makes it difficult to accept Turkey’s terms for joining the fight in neighbouring Syria.

Turkey and other allies want the US to create a no-fly zone inside Syrian territory. Yet doing that would mean embracing one of two options that President Barack Obama has long resisted: co-operating with Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, or taking out the government’s air defences, an action tantamount to war.

There are growing calls for the creation of a secure buffer on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey.

The US and others in the coalition fighting the militants are pleading with Turkey, a Nato ally, to prevent the fall of Kobani, a border town where the UN is warning of mass casualties.

A “safe zone” would require Americans and their partners to protect ground territory and patrol the sky, meaning enforcement of a no-fly area.

For Turkey, a buffer might stem the flow of refugees and could give Syrian opposition fighters a staging ground for their drive to oust Mr Assad, an aim that Ankara supports.

The US wants to keep the focus on combating Isis militants who have captured large areas of northern Syria and Iraq. Some of America’s closest partners and Mr Obama’s fiercest foreign policy critics are sympathetic to Turkey’s request. France came out in support this past week. The Republican leader of the House Foreign Affairs Committee believes Arab countries would shoulder the load. Even the Secretary of State, John Kerry, says a no-fly zone is worth examining.

The US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, has shown little enthusiasm, saying the administration is open to discussing a safe zone, but creating one isn’t “actively being considered”.

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For the US military, there are red flags about establishing an For the US military, there are red flags about establishing an area in Syria safe from attacks by Isis and the Syrian air force. General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has estimated that it would need hundreds of US aircraft and cost as much as $1bn a month to maintain, with no assurance of a change in battlefield momentum towards ending the Syrian civil war. That means US enforcement could become open-ended.

The Pentagon learned that lesson in Iraq in 1991 when, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, it established a no-fly zone over northern Iraq to protect Iraqi Kurds and another protective zone over southern Iraq to protect the Shia. Those zones were enforced by US Air Force and Navy pilots for 12 years, until the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.



Chuck Hagel says creating a safe zone is not ‘actively being considered’ by the US government


A zone in Syria would set the stage for a direct confrontation with one of the Middle East’s most formidable air defences, a system bolstered in recent years by top-of-the-line Russian hardware.

The Syrians possess multiple surface-to-air missiles providing overlapping coverage, and thousands of anti-aircraft guns capable of engaging the enemy at lower levels.

Moscow infuriated Washington last year when it confirmed that it would sell to Syria its S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, considered to be the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology.

The political challenges of a no-fly zone may prove greater than the military ones.

Given the threat to US pilots, the Pentagon would need rescue personnel on standby, perhaps in Turkey or Iraq. If an aircraft were downed, American troops would have to hit the ground in Syria, which Mr Obama repeatedly has ruled out.

Direct military action against the Assad government would also stretch the already tenuous claims that intervening in Syria is legal under US and international law.

The US could try for an accommodation with Mr Assad. But Mr Obama has ruled that out because of alleged human rights violations and war crimes by those forces. Western governments cite massacres of civilians and opposition forces, and chemical weapons attacks by Mr Assad’s troops.

AP

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