POLITICS - SECURITY_ Obama's Syria strategy near collapse?

WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Obama's Syria strategy near collapse?

By Charles Hoskinson | December 13, 2014 | 12:00 pm

The three-way war in Syria is outpacing the Obama administration's strategy for getting it under control, raising concerns that the U.S. approach is on the verge of collapse.

As the administration's program to train and equip a moderate rebel force struggles to get off the ground, those already in the fight are being crushed between the forces of President Bashar Assad and Islamic extremists, especially the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, the biggest beneficiary of the U.S.-led coalition's bombing campaign that began in September is Assad, who has used it as cover to go after the coalition's allies while mostly leaving the Islamic State alone.

Administration officials, noting repeatedly that Syria is a difficult problem, insist that only a political deal can heal that nation's problems, but informed observers say the U.S. isn't doing what's necessary to begin to achieve that goal.

Syria has always been an afterthought in the administration's Iraq-focused strategy against the Islamic State. Though coalition aircraft have been bombing Islamic State targets inside the country since September, the airstrikes have been aimed at denying the group a safe haven from fighting in Iraq and damaging its ability to make money from selling oil from captured oilfields and refineries.

"I understand what they're trying to do, but it's not working," said Robert Ford, who was U.S. ambassador to Syria from 2010 to 2014 and has become one of many critics of the administration's approach.

Administration officials have resisted the criticism, saying the strategy of using airstrikes to "degrade" the Islamic State's capabilities in Syria while training and equipping moderate resistance fighters needs time to succeed. President Obama has resisted international pressure from Turkey and many Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia to take a tougher line against Assad, or to create a no-fly zone in northern Syria to protect the rebels.

But time may be running out. The Pentagon has only just begun setting up facilities in Saudi Arabia and Turkey for the yearlong process of training the first group of 5,000 Syrian rebels, and has not vetted a single one as a possible candidate for the program.

"That’s a challenge for us, and we’re only now getting the camps to fruition," said retired Marine Gen. John Allen, the U.S. representative to the anti-Islamic State coalition.

Meanwhile, the situation for the moderate rebels becomes more dire, especially in northern Syria, as Assad regime forces and Islamist extremists close in on them from different directions as they largely ignore each other.

An analysis by IHS Jane's released this week found that 6 percent of 982 Syrian regime counterterrorism operations targeted the Islamic State and only 13 percent of 923 Islamic State attacks in Syria targeted Syrian security forces.

"These figures suggest that the Islamic State and Assad’s security forces have embraced the clever strategy of ignoring each other while focusing on attacking more moderate opposition groups," said Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center.

"Assad is trying to downplay the Syrian revolution narrative and instead portray it as an Islamist insurgency against his government. This way, he can crack down on it with the indirect support of the West," he said. "The Islamic State is looking to engineer a scenario where it is just them against Assad. Therefore, right now the group’s focus is on marginalizing moderate groups to the point where these groups’ fighters are ‘asked’ to join the Islamic State."

The defeats, along with what rebel commanders say is the resulting cutoff of U.S. aid, has led to defections to more radical groups and a reduction in the number of possible trainees once the program gets off the ground. Rebels also see the U.S.-led bombing campaign as aimed at helping Assad. Ford noted that U.S. aircraft have studiously avoided bombing Islamic State forces engaged in fights with moderate rebels while hitting them when they are fighting forces of the Assad regime.

"I do not understand the target selections. It makes no sense to me," he said.

While U.S. officials would not confirm the cutoff of support, their assessment of rebel capabilities is not optimistic.

"We do not see a situation in which the rebels will be able to remove him from power. It will have to be a negotiated diplomatic process," Brett McGurk, deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran, told House Foreign Affairs Committee members on Wednesday, referring to Assad.

But Ford said the administration's approach is becoming a "self-fulfilling prophecy" that risks eventually forcing the U.S. to choose between Assad and jihadis in Syria.

The United States is losing the support of the people it needs to spearhead the fight against the Islamic State in Syria, said Oubai Shahbandar, a spokesman for the Syrian resistance, who notes that even among the setbacks the rebels have become more organized.

"There is a role for the United States to play" in supporting the rebels, he said. "The opposition has done its part."

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