Part 2: Regional proxies and a covert CIA programme
by Patrick BAHZADIn the testimony he gave on Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Lloyd Austin – the head of CENTCOM – stated that there was all but a handful of pro-US rebels still operating on the ground in Syria. The rest of that sorry lot had either fled, joined other groups or had been killed. Now, the same eerie question comes up again, like it does every time US policy in Syria faces a new disaster … How could it come to this? How could the US get embroiled in such a calamitous strategy, recording failure, after failure, after failure? The answer to that is simple: what inevitably leads to the same mistakes, is believing your own spin – or rather the spin that the same "think tanks", armchair strategists and pseudo-experts feed a political establishment which already has a partisan agenda. Just to underline this recurring feature, Part 2 of this series will take a good look at various attempts made to support so-called "moderate" Syrian rebels between 2012 and 2015, based on a few case studies.
When trying to break down US efforts at building up rebel groups in Syria, three periods can be identified, all of them characterized by specific military, political and diplomatic circumstances. These fluctuations in the US strategy are already a first indicator of the reasons why it failed: there was no strategy as such in the first place, there were only short-term ideological considerations that dictated US policies on the ground.
Put simply, when the rebels had the upper-hand, they were encouraged to go for the whole nine yards and oust the Assad regime. When they seemed in trouble, their sponsors advocated for an increased effort of some sort and usually got what they asked for, except in two instances which could have been possible game changers (but we will get into these in Part 3). This short sighted policy of going with the flow and not thinking ahead is what brought US foreign policy to the dead-end it is at now.
All of this makes for a pretty dire assessment of US attitudes in relation to the conflict. It almost seems as if the means required to achieve a certain goal superseded the actual goal itself. That goal was “regime change”, let’s not kid ourselves. And the rebels were anti-regime, therefore they had to be supported one way or the other, as violent ouster of Assad was considered the only proper way of achieving the intended result. In plain English, this is called putting the cart before the horse, and that is exactly what US policy has suffered from in Syria.
In the first months of the war, between early 2011 and mid-2012, things looked like there was a division of labour between the US and its Western European allies (France and the United Kingdom) on the one hand, and regional players like Turkey and the Gulf States on the other. The West provided for the diplomatic and PR-noise, while regional allies enabled and guided the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) on the ground.
The rebels, which had been organized already before the first peaceful demonstrations by countries such as Saudi-Arabia and Qatar, started off as a joint-venture between exiled Syrian opposition figures, groups close to the Syrian “Muslim Brotherhood” (or what was left of it) and Syrian army defectors, who had been promised either money or influence, or sometimes both. And of course, there were also scores of FSA foot-soldiers who were just ordinary Sunni Syrians, disgruntled by years of economic hardship and political discrimination.
Confidence in the blue-print for the “Arab Spring” distorted the perceived difficulties of the task at hand, as nobody at State or the Pentagon seemed to be wondering whether Syria would not be a tougher nut to crack than Tunisia or Egypt. Not even the Libyan precedent, with its months’ long air campaign, was considered worthy of attention.
After months of guerilla warfare, mostly in the border areas in the North and South, the powers that be came to the realization that the FSA would never be able to topple Bashar al-Assad without serious outside help. Wary of any further military involvement the Middle-East, the US again chose to lead "from behind": rather than doing the job themselves, they provided for the logistics of military support to the rebels and let others do the work. Only this time, they had to rely solely on their allies in Turkey and the Gulf for eyes and ears on the ground.
This major difference to Libya, where US, British and French intelligence and Special Forces were present almost from day one, allowing for at least some sort of monitoring of the arms' flow and fighters' influx, proved fatal to the establishment of "moderate" rebel groups powerful enough to withstand the pressure from the Islamic insurgents.
“Air Qatar” as a new “Air America”
American logistical support started quite slowly, in January 2012, but the US soon approved a growing number of cargo flights carrying small calibre weapons, RPGs and ammunition to the airports of Amman or Ankara. From there, local intelligence and CIA supervisors took it upon themselves to get the weapons to Syrian insurgents. Looking back at this Middle-Eastern version of Vietnam’s “Air America”, the only real surprise is the naïve and irresponsible way the US administration subcontracted the weapons deliveries. Some 4 000 tonnes of military gear were supplied to the insurgents in between January 2012 and April 2013, with almost no direct monitoring by US officials in the border areas, particularly in Turkey.
Just like in Libya the year before, Qatar was spearheading the war effort. Their C-130 and C-17 aircraft flew to places all over the Mediterranean, where CIA officers would buy off local arms, thus draining the illegal arms market as well (at least that was the idea), before heading back mostly to Esenboga airport near Ankara. With Libya being a country awash with Gaddafi’s weapons, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which place was the most popular destination for the Qatari Air Force. Soon, Jordan and Saudi-Arabia joined in as well.
To the US, it was more a case of managing operations the best way they could, given that they were not really in a position to undermine the Gulf States’ efforts at arming the rebels. However, what the officials on the ground and in D.C. had probably not factored in, was that things would not stop at weapons deliveries. A growing influx of fighters was registered with every passing month in 2012, and the CIA agents in Turkey in particular must have felt a growing sense of unease at the sight and the sheer number of young men flying to Turkey, arriving on ships or simply by train, to join in the “Syrian revolution”, which was turning more and more into a Sunni "Jihad" against the Shia and Alawi apostates.
Turkish, Saudi and Qatari intelligence in charge
By early 2013, the genie was definitely out of the bottle and there was no way of getting him back in. From the point of view of the US administration, the most worrying feature was not actually the cargo flights and weapons deliveries as such. It was subcontracting the whole operation to Turkish and Gulf countries intelligence and special forces that was the most risky part. Contrary to Libya, and for the reasons explained above, the weapons that were flown into Syria's neighbouring countries with US knowledge and support were dispatched to rebel commanders by local “allies” with an agenda of their own.
Once the weapons had arrived in Turkey – or Jordan – the CIA or DIA operatives almost became simple bystanders, often unable to figure out what was happening exactly with these weapons. For lack of language skills, ignorance of the Syrian rebellion’s "typology", inability to make the difference between a foreign Saudi or Jordanian and a local Syrian, the exercise ended as could be expected. Turkish, Qatari and Saudi intelligence officers cherry-picked the groups they would hand the weapons over, thus making sure the few genuinely moderate groups didn’t get a thing and the increasingly fundamentalist Islamic groups – whether they were influenced by the reborn Syrian branch of the “Ikhwan” or the increasingly popular Salafi groups – got the bulk.
The only region where the weapons were delivered according to a reasonable set of security rules was Jordan, due to the tight cooperation between US intelligence and their Jordanian counterparts and also due to the fact the Jordanian GID had a vested interest in not seeing these weapons get into the wrong hands. Nonetheless, some radical Sunni groups still managed to get around the GID's watchful eye, sometimes buying off gear directly from the FSA units it had been delivered to.
Today, we know that some people within the IC, specifically the DIA, didn’t get fooled by the whole circus the border areas had turned into, but their reports were overruled by the fairytale narrative that was being repeated all over institutional America: the FSA was a “secularist” army fighting to free their country from a bloodthirsty tyrant and there was neither "Al Qaeda" nor any other "Jihadi" group fighting in Syria.
The “No Fly Zone” already mentioned as the panacea
Interestingly, it was already at this point in the war –in the middle of 2012 – that the same D.C. think tanks and PR-agencies which had come up with such a rosy scenario openly discussed another idea, one that would become the most recurring request and “strategic” solution to the crisis: the “No Fly Zone”.
One of its most vocal supporters, Anne-Marie Slaughter, had very clear ideas about the way forward: “Establishing ‘free zones’ would require nations like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to arm the opposition soldiers with anti-tank, counter-sniper and portable antiaircraft weapons. Special forces from countries like Qatar, Turkey and possibly Britain and France could offer tactical and strategic advice to the Free Syrian Army forces. Sending them in is logistically and politically feasible; some may be there already.”
This excerpt from an article she wrote for the New York Times in February 2012 is not just symbolic of the way mainstream media saw the conflict and the players involved, but it also gives a few clues about what agenda these interest groups wanted to push all along. Their idea was not to encourage a peaceful settlement to the conflict but to get rid of the regime at any cost, provided there was no US “boots on the ground”. The failure to implement these plans, and the failure of the FSA to seriously challenge the military balance, forced the parties involved to reconsider their involvement. The US in particular, having first chosen to “lead from behind” as in Libya, altered their level of engagement.
The CIA’s covert support programme
The increasingly alarming signs of a take-over of the insurgency by Sunni fundamentalists certainly played a role in this American strategy shift. Turkish, Saudi and Qatari intelligence were controlling most of the groups doing the fighting against the Syrian Arab Army. "Jabhat al-Nusra" had started its recruitment operations in late 2011 and launched its first suicide attacks early in 2012. Other "Jihadi" groups joined the fray and the number of foreign fighters in particular grew very rapidly, as Western NGO members working in Syria identified already by mid-2012.
This development, in conjunction with the failed attempt at building up the FSA under the direct control of Qatari, Saudi and Turkish intelligence, were the main reasons why a covert US programme was finally launched in March 2013, aimed at providing American weapons – either directly from US stocks or from allied countries – to a series of rebel groups that were to be vetted by the CIA. Presented as a small-scale and small-budget operation, it turned out the programme was actually larger than the 500 million dollars Congress would officially provide the Syrian opposition with, one year later.
The CIA operation not only provided for the vetting and arming of specific groups, but also for their training. Needless to say, the training took place in local countries, again giving so-called “allies” of the US another chance at shaping the insurgency in a way they saw fit. The first groups that were approved went through a rigorous screening process, if you believe officials familiar with it. Looking at the groups that benefited from a number of US made TOW anti-tank missiles, one has to wonder however at who actually vetted these groups.
Again, what seems most likely is that the US administration either relied on faulty intelligence, probably cooked up by local “friendlies”, or chose to deliberately disregard whatever proper intelligence the CIA or the DIA had come up with about groups such as “Harakat Hazzm”, the “Syrian Revolutionaries Front” or “Liwa Fursan al-Haq”. Some of the papers that advocated for arming and training these groups definitely make for an interesting reading. WINEP for example talked up “Harakat Hazzm” as “a model for the type of group the United States and its allies can support with meaningful, lethal military assistance”. The reader was spared no hyperbole and as usual, the supporters of violent regime change made it clear that failure to arm these legitimate groups would only make matters worse.
Disaster in the Fall of 2014
There seemed to be another logic at work behind the rationale for arming and training these secularist “moderates”. The “Institute for the Study of War” expressed it best in one of its strategy papers: not only did it make sense to arm groups because they were more sympathetic to the US, but it would also enable the US to cut off the logistics and operational links between these groups and the radical Islamist insurgents, most of all “Jabhat al-Nusra”, which had not yet split up between supporters of al-Baghdadi’s “ISI” and al-Zawahiri’s “Al Qaeda” central.
Separating the core of “Jihad” incorporated from groups having chosen an alliance of circumstance with the Islamists was the secondary goal of arming them. It was basically playing the ”Sons of Iraq” card all over again: buying off what King David recently called the “reconcilables” and turning them loose not just on Assad first but also on the “Jihadis” later.
However, such a crude strategy did not take the “Jihadis” by surprise. Not only that, but it also promoted a sense of jealousy among the other groups that had not been vetted into the covert CIA funding. And while the covert support allowed the delivery of weapons directly to the rebels, without any middlemen, the training of the groups that had been picked took place mostly in Qatar and Jordan, in a way very similar to what had been done for a number of Libyan insurgents three years earlier.
Thus, Qatari intelligence in particular got a very good idea which groups and people were in the good books of the Americans. First results on the ground proved to be promising. The training and the anti-tank missiles enabled the rebels to gain ground in the North-West of Syria (Idlib in particular) and in the South. By the fall of 2014 however, the pipe-dream of arming and supporting the "moderates" was over, when Jabhat al-Nusra crushed the 7 or 8 “Free Syrian Army” groups that had already cost the US over 100 million dollars.
ISIS enters the game
What had changed the equation totally, both for the US and for the Syrian insurgency, was the split that had occurred between “Al Qaeda” central and the “Islamic State in Iraq” over leadership of the “Jabhat al-Nusra” franchise. But more importantly, the spectacular gains ISIS realized in the summer of 2014 forced the US to implement another strategy change and establish its anti-ISIS coalition. Strangely however, one of the first airstrikes the US launched in September 2014 turned out to be a blunder of epic proportions. Indeed, for reasons that may have seemed justified at the time, the Air Force hit the so-called “Khorasan group”, a “Jabhat al-Nusra” outfit that was described as presenting an imminent threat to the US.
If there had been any doubts left among al-Nusra's leadership, that airstrike lifted it. It was not just the “Islamic State” the US were after, but any Salafi insurgency within Syria. The corollary to this verdict was simple: any group getting help from the Americans was a potential collaborator and had to be eliminated. “Jabhat al-Nusra” and groups friendly to it, especially “Ahrar al-Sham” which had also been hit by the US Air Force, cleaned up the house, and they cleaned up good.
Within a couple of days, in November 2014, they did away with the main recipients of US military training and equipment: “Harakat Hazzm” and the “Syrian Revolutionaries Front” were done, even though the first managed to survive more or less until March 2015, when it was finally dissolved following another “Jabhat al-Nusra” assault.
As an unintended consequence of these groups' destruction, the rebels that the covert CIA programme was specifically designed to avoid found themselves in possession of the TOW missiles and other US gear that had been earmarked for the secularist insurgents… A new feature at the time, but one that would become very familiar one year later in Iraq. And cherry on top, none of the other FSA or “independent” brigades moved a finger, when “Jabhat al-Nusra” destroyed the US backed “moderates”.
Stumbling into an old friend
Thus, in the fall of 2014, it should already have been clear to officials in charge that being labelled a “moderate” was only another way of saying these groups were on the US’ payroll. And in a war like Syria, when you got "Jabhat al-Nusra" at your side, and the "Islamic State" in front of you, you don’t want to be on anybody’s payroll, least of all the US. None other than the leader of the “Syrian Revolutionaries Front”, Jamal Maarouf, exemplifies this any better. A famous leader of the FSA in the early days of the civil war, Maarouf’s reputation soon was tarnished by various accusations of corruption and oil smuggling in the group he led back then, the “Syrian Martyrs’ Brigade”.
This "brigade" has already made the headlines for one of its most astonishing accomplishments: revealed by a German newspaper, it was allegedly Maarouf's "Martyrs" who shot and killed the Islamic State's chief strategist, Hajji Bakr, in a small house in Northern Syria, early in 2014. A trove of intelligence about ISIS' strategy of terror was allegedly recovered from Hajji Bakr's hideout and found its way into German newspaper "Der Spiegel". When you consider that all of this is supposed to have happened at a time when Maarouf was already on the CIA's payroll, there are a number of still unanswered questions that spring to mind about the circumstances in which this intelligence was discovered and how it got to a German newspaper crew.
There we have it though: one of the most important recipients of CIA help between 2013 and 2014, a group which had been screened thoroughly, turned out to be led by a corrupt, drug smuggling leader, whose men were most famous for their "diesel checkpoints" than for fighting the Syrian army. When you enquire about why such a man and his fighters were even approved, you always get the same answers. "Maarouf was a nationalist, not an ideologue", for example. Or, it was important to arm these people because US over-caution about who to fund was only making the radicals stronger in the end.
That a man such as Maarouf, who was definitely interested in US funding and support for more than just one reason, might have exaggerated the number and skills of his fighters just to get on the CIA list in the first place seems to be beyond comprehension for the advocates of that covert programme. That supporting a group such as “Syrian Revolutionaries Front” wouldn't make the moderates any stronger also seems to evade these people's minds.
A massive failure
The other group that benefited most from US money, “Harakat Hazzm” doesn't resist closer scrutiny either. Introduced as paragons of democratic virtue by WINEP and other Neo-Con or Wilsonian think tanks, any decent investigation on the ground would have proven beyond any doubt that this wasn't a homogeneous leadership with a unified "command and control", but a vast conglomerate of local militias with diverging affiliations. Sometimes, they even cooperated with the most extreme "Jihadi" insurgents, "tier one" Jabhat al-Nusra allies as the ISW would label them, like "Jaish al-Muharijeen wal Ansar", an outfit featuring a large number of foreign fighters, most of them Chechens.
What remains of the covert programme is a large pile of rubble. The fact it was terminated early this year by the House Intelligence Committee bears testimony to its utter failure. In all fairness, one needs to recognize that the CIA and US Special Forces managed to achieve reasonable success in the Kurdish areas. The support given to YPG militias in their fight against the "Islamic State" can be considered a success up to a certain degree, but this is another matter.
As far as arming "moderate" rebels involved in the war against Bashar al-Assad is concerned, the programme has failure written over it, from start to finish. The only thing that was actually achieved, contrary to what the ISW suggests in its December 2014 paper on "Jabhat al-Nusra", is that the groups on whose cooperation the US were counting in order to isolate the "Al Qaeda" franchise in Syria were totally annihilated.
After such a blunder, you might have thought that lessons would have been learnt and that a different approach - both more subtle and more realistic - would now be implemented. Far from it. The year 2015 and the debacle of "Division 30" would prove again that there are no "lessons learnt" when ideological stubbornness overrules tactical and operational considerations.
Patrick Bahzad,
I was just drafting some remarks on your response to the comment by 'Akira' on your post reporting General Gomart's caution about the claims about Russian military involvement in Syria, when you put up this new analysis.
The report from 'AMD News', to which 'Akira' linked, opened:
'Addressing the Russian top brass on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin lambasted U.S. Middle-East policy for being ''disastrous'' as Saudi-backed rebels vowed to purge Syria and Iraq from Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities.
'"We have nearly two million orthodox Christians in the Levant—Syria and Lebanon— and approximately 5 million Christians across Middle-East. Regardless of America's presidential election outcome, White House craves chaos in that oil-rich region by supporting fanatic Islamist organizations, i.e. ISIS and al-Nusra Front," Moskovskaya Pravda cited the Russian president as saying.
'It is morally incumbent upon Russia to change this terrible status quo in the Middle-East , added Mr.Putin , prepare for operation ''Salvation'' and with God almighty's aid , we shall cleanse Syria from Obama's ruthless terrorists.'
(See http://tinyurl.com/nn3wbdw .)
If Putin had indeed made these remarks it would be extremely interesting. However, the report seems to me likely to be precisely the kind of 'information operations' piece about which General Gompart has displayed commendable scepticism, both in regards to Russian policy on Ukraine and Russian policy on Syria.
It contains no link to the 'Moskovskaya Pravda' story on which it is supposedly based. On their own site, what purports to be a link to 'About AMDNEWS' does not work. So far at least, all other reports about this supposed operation 'Salvation' can all be traced back to this single story.
In the light of your very helpful statistical breakdown, what the report suggests is that Putin has included the 'Eastern Catholic' churches – that is, those whose liturgies are related to the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, but are in full communion with the Pope – with the Eastern Orthodox Church.
I much doubt he would do this.
(In passing – not that it is a matter of great significance, if the report is disinformation – it did not actually suggest, as you appeared to believe, that Putin claimed to be 'morally' in charge of Eastern Christian churches – merely that it was 'morally incumbent on Russia to change this terrible status-quo in the Middle East.')
A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that there is a wide spectrum of opinion among the Russian political élite about how Western policy in the Middle East – and also Chechnya, the Caucasus generally, and Central Asia - is to be interpreted.
In part, this derives from the fact that the Russian political élite continues to be immensely diverse, both in its perceived material interests, and also ideological beliefs, or lack of them. Moreover, the 'whirligig of time', aided and abetted by foolish Western policy, has indeed 'brought in his revenges'.
There is a natural coming together between people who say that Stalin was wrong about religion but right about the West, and people who see Western policy in the Ukraine through a lens shaped by a – certainly selective – reading of old history, in which 1204, 1453, 1812, the Crimean War, and 'Operation Barbarossa' are all part of the same story.
Part of the reason why the claims on 'AMD News' are so interesting is that they identify Putin with this position. But, historically, this is quite wrong. From the time he came to power in 2000 until very recently, he sought to use the vision of jihadist terrorism as a common enemy to create the basis of an entente with the West, and acceptance of Russia as a respected participant in the Western 'system'.
It is Western policy that has driven him further and further into the arms of the anti-Western forces in the Russian élite. However, I very much doubt that he has ceased listening to those elements in that élite who see Western Middle East policy as being as much or more the product of cock-up, rather than conspiracy.
And recent developments – including in a small way, just possibly, both General Gomart's remarks and your own posts on this blog – are likely to have been taken by those elements as indicating that it would be unwise to base policy on the assumption that a radical change of view in the West can be ruled out.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 18 September 2015 at 01:30 PM
Thanks once more for your insights and factual history.
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 18 September 2015 at 01:43 PM
Thanks Patrick for another very educational analysis! However, I'm more of a "big picture" person, and was remembering while reading this that in addition to US meddling in Syria, the Brits and French have meddled there as well. Trying to put it all in context in my own mind inspired me to do a bit of searching through my notes supplemented by some online searching to get more historical background on the current Syria situation.
I found two articles of particular relevance in trying to set your piece in the context of a larger historical pattern.
The first one has been noted at SST before. It's a long historical overview of Syria by William Polk. My excerpt here highlights French meddling in Syria starting almost 100 years ago.
Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad
How drought, foreign meddling, and long-festering religious tensions created the tragically splintered Syria we know today. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/understanding-syria-from-pre-civil-war-to-post-assad/281989/
Most of what became Syria is shown as “Zone A” on the map, which the French gave to the British at the peace conference to remind them of the deal. During the latter part of the war, the leaders of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire established a kingdom at Damascus and at the Paris Peace Conference sought recognition of their independence. France was determined, however, to effect its deal with Britain, so in 1920 it invaded and “regime-changed” the Damascus government, making Syria a de facto colony of France but legally, under the League of Nations, a “mandate.” The terms of the League mandate required France to prepare it for independence, but the French showed little intention to do that. They spent the next three years actually conquering the country and reformulating the territory. …
When French policies did not work and nationalism began to offer an alternate vision of political life, the French colonial administration fell back on violence. Indeed throughout the French period—in contrast to the relatively laissez-faire rule of the Ottoman Empire—violence was never far below the outward face of French rule. The French bombarded Damascus, which they had regime-changed in 1920, in 1925, 1926, and 1945, and they pacified the city with martial law during most of the “peaceful” intervals. Constitutions were proclaimed periodically, only to be revoked, and independence was promised time after time until it was finally gained—not by the Syrians nor given by the French but bestowed on Syria by the British army. Because the French administration was under the control of the Vichy government and had abetted German activities, the British invaded in 1941 and overthrew Vichy France’s administration. However, they left behind the “Free French” who continued essentially the Vichy regime. The last French soldier did not leave until April 17, 1946, which became Syria’s national day.
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Of course, once the French gov't turned it's energies elsewhere, the Brits and Americans took advantage to their chance to meddle. I found this excellent article by historian Douglas Little that covers a time period and covert actions in Syria somewhat skipped over in the Polk article. The excerpts I have chosen show actions that took place almost 60 years ago are not so different from today.
1949-1958 Syria: Early Experiments in Covert Action http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue51/articles/51_12-13.pdf
The CIA secretly encouraged a right-wing military coup in 1949. Repeated CIA covert action during the following decade stimulated Arab antiAmericanism, drove the Syrian left closer to the Kremlin, and made overt military involvement more likely. …
During an unprecedented New Year’s Day meeting with key legislative leaders, Eisenhower requested congressional authorization to use U.S. troops to counter Soviet subversion in the Middle East. He “cited Syrian developments as evidence of Russian intent.” The House approved, 355 to 61 on January 30, 1957, and the Eisenhower Doctrine went into effect. In August, Washington apparently gave authorization for Operation Wappen, the code name for the new U.S. covert operation against Syria. Howard Stone, a CIA political action specialist with experience in Iran and Sudan, had been planning a coup with dissidents inside the Syrian army for three months. Meanwhile, Shishakli assured Kermit Roosevelt that he was ready to reassume power in Syria. According to Charles Yost, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Wappen was “a particularly clumsy CIA plot” and was “penetrated by Syrian intelligence.”
… Syrian counterintelligence chief Sarraj reacted swiftly on August 12, expelling Stone and other CIA agents, arresting their accomplices and placing the U.S. embassy under surveillance. … The U.S. encouraged Turkey and Iraq to mass troops along their borders with Syria; and “if Syrian aggression should provoke a military reaction,” Washington would “expedite shipments of arms to the Middle East and would replace losses as quickly as possible.” “The Sixth Fleet was ordered again to the eastern end of the Mediterranean,” U.S. jets were sent to a NATO base in Turkey, and U.S. “‘ready’ forces, particularly the Strategic Air Command, were alerted.” For the second time in a year, an abortive CIA operation in Syria nearly triggered a superpower confrontation. Eisenhower gradually edged away from the provocative scheme but the Turks refused to demobilize the 50,000 troops they had massed along the Syrian frontier.
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Looking at this larger historical picture reminds me a bit of the movie Groundhog's Day. Not only is current US policy toward Syria laughable (in the tragic sense of that word) but it always has been. The French and Brits have also consistently f***ed things up in that area as well. In fact, the entire history of US and foreign powers meddling in Syria is just one tragic story after another. This Great Game in the ME is not new, and I expect it will continue for a long, long time. The names of the groups may change but the underlying power dynamics, and the ego contests between Great powers remain the same.
Posted by: Valissa | 18 September 2015 at 01:53 PM
DH,
Thx for putting Akira's comment into context. I was merely objecting to the underlying data, which doesn't add up.
Agree with your point about the Russians' and Putin's stance on all of this. There seems to be some serious questions marks regarding the whole statement.
However, Putin definitely knows which lines to pick, in order to make a point. Parading as the Lord protector of Eastern Christians would probably suit him very well and be a good reason not to address the "national interests" he is defending with his move.
There is also a strong connection with anything happening in Syria and Ukraine, as both theatres are part of the same game. Putting the heat on in either one of them has consequences on the other.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 18 September 2015 at 02:22 PM
Valissa,
I'm not disputing the facts and "long term" history you're mentioning in your post. It would be too long to get into it in a comment.
I have addressed the French responsibility in the current Syrian mess 'in extenso' in some pieces devoted to Syria. The main responsibility of the French though was to rely on minorities, very much like the British did, in order to "divide and rule". In Syria that minority was the Alawites. In Lebanon, it was the Maronite Christians.
This piece however, is about the current situation with regard to the Syrian insurgency and as much as I appreciate your eargerness for the "big picture", that big picture is rather simple: the West on the one hand as I mentioned (France included), pairing up with the Gulf States, Turkey and Jordan, in order to enforce "regime change" in Syria.
Each player had a specific role in that overall strategy. The French have been mostly posturing, encouraged by their Qatari allies. Unlike Libya, French involvement on the ground in Syria has been minimal.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 18 September 2015 at 02:28 PM
Posturing as the Protector of Eastern Christians was a consistent element of how Tsars dealt with the Ottoman Empire.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 18 September 2015 at 03:16 PM
Patrick, we all have our own ways of making sense of the chaos that is the ME. As I mentioned I very much appreciate your detailed analysis, but I have no military or intelligence background, and I have to place that information in some context or my brain won't remember it. Since my own interest and area of research is "long history" that's how I try and understand the knowledge you are sharing. My long history approach also helps me to be realistic in my expectations of what is possible in the ME, and tempers my expectations of US policy. Realism helps me maintain acceptable blood pressure levels :)
Since I have your attention, I am curious on your thoughts on these recent article regarding potential French actions in Syria...
France to launch air strikes in Syria ‘in coming weeks’ http://www.france24.com/en/20150916-france-launch-airstrikes-syria-islamic-state-jihadists-group-iraq-military-assad
Majority of French people favour sending troops to Syria: poll http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/majority-of-french-people-favour-sending-troops-to-syria--poll/41658330
French President Francois Hollande last week ruled out any ground intervention in Syria, saying that it was up to Syrians and regional states to do the work on the ground. Buy senior government minister Segolene Royal, who is charge of the energy and environment portfolios, refused to entirely close the door to sending ground troops. "The question of sending ground troops is not yet on the table... but obviously nothing is taboo," Royal said on RTL radio.
Germany May Be Leaving the US Anti-Syria Coalition http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/germany-may-be-leaving-us-anti-syria-coalition/ri9704
A speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added, Germany would welcome additional efforts of Russia in the fight against IS. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even announced the starting of a joint venture between him, Russian foreign minister Lavrov and their French colleague Laurent Fabius with the aim of bringing the Syrian civil war to an end. Lavrov and Fabius are expected to arrive in Berlin this Saturday.
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From your point of view, how are French relations with Russia these days? What do you think of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his reaching out to Russia regarding Syria?
Posted by: Valissa | 18 September 2015 at 03:17 PM
BAHZAD thanks for this. I cannot add any insights because the whole thing is way too complicated for me to digest. But it brings to mind something from America's involvement in Lebanon in 1982. If memory serves it was a statement by a Marine CO who suggested that the US should not enter into a civil war that has five sides -- best to step aside and let events develop on their own. It is time for the US to step aside and if Russia wants to try to solve this mess then more power to them.
Posted by: Toivos | 18 September 2015 at 03:24 PM
PB
Thanks for your concise explanation of the gigantic SNAFU in Syria. Graham Greene novels keep repeating themselves for the past 60 years. This is beyond innocence and incompetence. It is intentional. There is money to be siphoned off of arms sales, reconstruction and military contracting. Refugees are marketing opportunities for Coyotes.
The driving forces are human greed, tribal conflict, and the rape and pillage of the enemy. The West codified warfare but rules disappear in religious conflicts.
Russia is correct. What is ongoing is a repeat of the periodic invasions from the West. This time the cheerleaders are Anne-Marie Slaughter, Anne Applebaum and Victoria Nuland. Syria and Ukraine are battlefields in the attempt to destabilize Russia and force a Kremlin regime change. They are the first salvoes of World War III unless sanity prevails and the combat zones partitioned, peace treaties signed, and refugees returned home.
Posted by: VietnamVet | 18 September 2015 at 04:12 PM
Patrick Bahzad,
Thanks for the detailed article!
In 2013 there was a minor media theme, when Pres. Obama requested Congressional approval for strikes against Syria, and he faced serious public opposition, including the capaign with US servicemen holding up signs on twitter.
Do you know anything about how that fit into the official strategy during time period you're talking about?
Thanks again! Looking forward to part 3.
Posted by: user1234 | 18 September 2015 at 04:59 PM
I'll get into the eastern ghouta chemical attack in part 3, as this could have been one of those game changers, just as the no fly zone could be.
I think the chemical scenario was slowly built up all over the first half of 2013, because it was clear the syrian army was gaming the upper hand.
I'll try and gve you some answers in part 3, which will deal with the division 30 disaster, as well as the way forward, with the Russians now getting involved and the option of the no fly zone becoming an more dangerous option, just as obama's red line was.
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 18 September 2015 at 05:08 PM
PB,
"anything happening in Syria and Ukraine, ... are part of the same game".
IMO you are spot on. Would you also say all strife in MENA, Yemen and Turkey included, is part of the same game? Feels as if an existential bout is about to start.
KSA delenda est!
Ishmael Zechariah
Posted by: Ishmael Zechariah | 18 September 2015 at 05:35 PM
Thanks!
Posted by: user1234 | 18 September 2015 at 06:54 PM
from "Cartago delenda est?" But Carthage ultimately prevailed upon Rome in a roundabout way. Septimius Severus, Imperator Romanus
"Born on 11 April 145 at Leptis Magna (in present-day Libya) as the son of Publius Septimius Geta and Fulvia Pia,[2] Septimius Severus came from a wealthy and distinguished family of equestrian rank. He had Italian Roman ancestry on his mother's side and descended from Punic - and perhaps also Libyan - forebears on his father's side."
Some say he had Punic blood from his father's side also. He spoke Latin with a Punic accent and tellingly "While campaigning against Byzantium he ordered the covering of the tomb of his fellow Carthaginian Hannibal with fine marble." wiki
Posted by: Will | 18 September 2015 at 07:38 PM
Patrick
There seems to be a more complex relationship between the US, its allies and Nusra. The US Patriots in Turkey helped Nusra take Idlib. The IAF has repeatedly intervened to help Nusra move along the Golan. The CIA expected its trainees to work with Nusra around Aleppo. Lister of Brookings Institute revealed that the CIA in Turkey had supported the coordination efforts between jihadist factions in Idlib, including Nusra. And there are obviously factions in the US state that want to support Nusra. How does all of this factor into your analysis.
Posted by: Van | 18 September 2015 at 08:09 PM
There certainly is circumstantial evidence to back up such claims, however I think this is more perception than reality, a side effect if you will of what the US startegy has been over the past year. The expected cooperation between CIA trainees and groups allied with JaN in Aleppo and Idlib certainly is a trend most specific to the year 2015. This is the period I want to get into in the next part.
Just to gve you an idea of what may have been going on, it is possible that having exhausted all the possibilities of turning the FSA into an effective fighting force, some people came up with the brilliant idea of backing part of the Islamic insurgents and JaN allies in the hope that this might break up the Salafi/Jihadi insurgency into a purely Sunni syrian branch that might be accommodated with a state of their own, while the international Jihadis would be left out in the cold and targeted just like ISIS.
Certain Israeli interests wishing to break up Syria into small sectarian entities might also encourage such a development. But it is like playing with fire ...
Posted by: Patrick Bahzad | 18 September 2015 at 08:24 PM
This is a late Friday afternoon back tracking by the White House. Potentially significant. And as predicted by PL.
This is Putin's second gift to Obama on Syria. It just took some hard balancing to drill in the point.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/world/europe/us-to-begin-military-talks-with-russia-on-syria.html
Posted by: Van | 18 September 2015 at 08:42 PM
Will,
Were he able to respond, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus would have probably disagreed with you.
Ishmael Zechariah
Posted by: Ishmael Zechariah | 18 September 2015 at 09:39 PM
Van
Any thoughts on whether or not the US military will be actively helping the Russian military go after Daesh ?
Posted by: alba etie | 18 September 2015 at 11:38 PM
The mobilisation of the disgruntled ordinary Sunni Syrians is in my view where the Islamist groups had an advantage. They could offer a political vision of a future Syria with more meat on it and better grounded in local culture than "Democracy!".
And when people start to die in large numbers the desire for revenge becomes a powerful factor in mobilising more supporters. Revenge is rarely guided by moderation which gives groups like Jabhat al-Nusra & Ahrar al-Sham political tailwind.
Posted by: Poul | 19 September 2015 at 02:02 AM
question WRT Akira linked material: "undulant rhetoric"??? or pseudo-undulant rhetoric ????
"The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire... focuses on the debasement of language in political rhetoric.... it is propaganda that keeps the fragile empires afloat, and when language becomes too distorted, [people] succumb to a condition called "undulant rhetoric" and are placed in a Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases."
Posted by: rjj | 19 September 2015 at 09:28 AM
IOW is the poster A. a fake true believer?
Posted by: rjj | 19 September 2015 at 10:02 AM
Patrick,
Could there be a Russian interest in obliterating the Chechens operating in Syria?
Posted by: CarlD | 19 September 2015 at 11:18 AM
PB
Thanks for this essay. Looks like you, perhaps, are creating a strategic version of the tactically focused VN Primer by Col. Hackworth.
If you were to recommend one book (in English, por favor) on the Foreign Legion, what would it be?
An assignat for your thoughts (I may be foreshadowing the plight of the USD with that reference).
Valissa of the Back Bay Fens
If I recall, back during your biker days and thereafter, you became a fen fan of Murrel’s Inlet, probably sans golf courses.
Just to let you know… on US 17 is a place called Harrelson’s. It has better fish than the shrimp dock in Georgetown (SC, of course). Shrimp is still better at the shrimp dock.
Those salt marshes all up and down the East Coast are mighty pretty this time of year.
Posted by: Johnny Reims | 19 September 2015 at 12:59 PM
A detailed and intelligent commentary. Indeed, I think a lot of the problem is that the American elites have been so coddled and so spoiled that failure no longer means anything to them. No matter how bad their military, foreign policy, or economic blunders, they will continue to draw big salaries and be treated as serious people etc. Lose a billion dollars? Well, then they just get bailed out by the public treasury. An engineer would say that their feedback systems are broken - they are operating 'open loop.' They live in a bubble surrounded by an entire culture of sycophants - is it any wonder that American policy makes no sense?
On another topic, I remain astonished at the censorship of the root cause of the current Syrian crisis, which was the Baathist policy of deliberately igniting a population explosion by outlawing the sale and possession of any kind of contraceptives, and propagandizing that it was every woman's patriotic duty to have six kids. So in 1970 the population was 5 million, and by 2010 it was 22 million, food started to run out, there were all these angry unemployed young men, and that never works out well.
No this was not 'climate change' - the water table was dropping precipitously even when rainfall was normal or above normal.
You can chant 'people are the ultimate resource' until you are blue in the face, but no society without an open frontier has ever prospered with this kind of growth rate.
Ah, but it is dogma that rapid population growth simply cannot ever be anything more than an unalloyed good, therefore any consideration of demographics cannot be allowed. The only possible explanation for opposition to established dogma must be racism. Or Nazism. Or socialism. Or whatever other boogyman is trending current.
"The great events of history are often due to secular changes in the growth of population and other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed to the follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists." - John Maynard Keynes
Posted by: Globus Pallidus XI | 19 September 2015 at 01:14 PM