2:29 pm ET Jan 15, 2015
Think Tank
Why the U.S. Prefers Assad to ISIS in Syria
By Aaron David Miller
File photo of a smoke rising from the Syrian city of Kobani, near the border with Turkey, after an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition in November. Associated Press
The news that the Obama administration supports Russian efforts to convene negotiations between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and opposition forces is a stunning reminder of where U.S. policy on Syria has devolved. As happened with the Russian chemical weapons proposal of 2012, Vladimir Putin is once again rescuing U.S. Syria policy from itself. The Moscow talks are not likely to succeed. But the announcement reflects a growing view in Washington that Mr. Assad, while a huge part of the problem, may also now be part of the solution. Washington will not abandon President Barack Obama’s “Assad must go” trope. But the administration clearly is moving to accept that Mr. Assad isn’t going anywhere. And here’s why.
As Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, wrote in 2013, getting rid of Mr. Assad is likely to produce “a major country at the heart of the Arab world in the hands of Al Qaeda.” The notion that there’s some Alawite general willing and able to replace Mr. Assad and pursue peace with the Sunni opposition is highly improbable. Should Mr. Assad depart the scene and the regime collapse, ISIS and other Islamists would benefit. Islamic State would take over its first major Arab capital, and recruitment would skyrocket. Alawites and other minorities would flee, further stressing neighboring Lebanon and Jordan, which are already burdened with refugees.
The Obama administration seems to have already voted with its feet on this issue. The president long avoided militarizing the U.S. role in Syria. Yet he chose to do so last year not in response to the Assad regime’s mass killings and atrocities but in response to ISIS crimes. Indeed, the administration has identified ISIS as an imminent terrorist threat, far more likely to strike U.S. interests than is Mr. Assad. Washington seems to be pursuing a counterterrorism strategy, not an approach designed to remove Mr. Assad and rebuild Syria. As much as our regional allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey want the U.S. to attack the Syrian regime, President Obama rightly understands that weakening Mr. Assad–let alone removing him without an alternative–would make an already bad situation much worse.
Critics have lambasted Mr. Obama for leading from behind on Syria. But the reality is complex. Syria has always been different from Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, and even Libya, where dictators were removed reasonably quickly. The Syrian regime proved much more cohesive and its opposition much more fractured and weak; the international community has been less a coalition of the willing (as in the NATO effort to remove Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi) and more a gathering of the self-interested, unwilling, and disabled. After Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration had no desire to get the U.S. into any more trillion-dollar experiments in nation-building. Some say that had the president followed the advice of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or then-CIA Director Leon Panetta and aided the Syrian rebels earlier, that would have significantly altered the arc of the battlefield. But that would have required direct military intervention, something for which few were prepared.
It’s worth noting that Secretary of State John Kerry also welcomed the proposals of the U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, which call for local cease-fires starting with Aleppo. The announcement Thursday that the Syrian government has reached a truce with rebels in the Homs area is another boost for the regime. Indeed, this approach recognizes certain realities, first and foremost the stalemate between the regime and the Islamists as well as ISIS gains. Mr. Assad may be a mass murderer. But it’s increasingly clear that in its realpolitik balance-of-power containment strategy on Syria, the Obama administration is willing–at least for now–to accept his presence as a better alternative to the murderous jihadis who want to replace him.
Aaron David Miller is a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and most recently the author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” He is on Twitter: @AaronDMiller2.
ALSO IN THINK TANK:
* The Conspicuous U.S. Absence From Paris Solidarity March
* The Terror Threat From al Qaeda
* Can We Sustain a Response to Extremist Ideologies?
* Analyzing European Views of Muslims
* The Arab Spring in 2015: RIP?
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