Drifting sands: America's strategy in Syria

By Patrick BAHZAD

As the war in Syria is entering a new phase, the US will have to deal with issues that will prove very difficult to incorporate into a single comprehensive strategy.    

There was an eerie sense of déjà vu about yesterday's statement by Secretary of State Tillerson. The kind of same old, same old speech about issues, challenges and threats, not necessarily related, and grand objectives of US foreign policy. But the most basic question as to what the United States wants to do with Syria, and what it wants for the Middle-East in general, remained unanswered. Obviously, it doesn't take a genius to figure out this administration is on course for containment and roll back of Iranian influence in the region. But wishful thinking and circumstantial alliances with unreliable partners don't make a strategy, they just make up a recipe for yet another disaster.

War in Syria has entered a new, decisive phase, that much is clear. The so-called "Islamic State" has been defeated as a political entity, in Syria as well as in Iraq. And, as could also be expected, it has already started to morph back into an insurgency, alas of global proportions this time, and will soon re-emerge not just in the Middle-East, but in areas where we didn't encounter its black banner before. The ambush that targeted American Special Forces in Mali, in late 2017, bears testimony to this trend.

Jihad Incorporated is expanding, despite the massive blow it was dealt in Mosul and Raqqa. The costs of the military operations against IS are high though, and there will be a price to pay for the way local forces conducted operations. Huge refugee camps have been established. Cities were levelled to the ground. Reconstruction is in tatters. This is a fertile breeding ground for any insurgency and the Jihadi shape shifters will try and take advantage of those circumstances.

While Syria currently looks worse off in that regard than Iraq, appearances are misleading. IS' centre of gravity has always been Iraq. The Syrian adventure, while it may have favoured IS' expansion by providing safe havens and strategic depth to the Jihadis, was more of a welcome sideshow. They would have taken Damascus if they had had a chance to, but they didn't. They wanted Baghdad, and had it not been for the separate efforts by the Coalition on the one hand and – let's not forget this – by the Iranians on the other, they might have reached it. Today, there are leftovers of the group in Syria (Hama, Deir Ezzor and Hasakah), but it's in Iraq that the new insurgency has the best chances for a comeback.  

This time around, we have decided to stay. Avoid the mistakes of the 2011 withdrawal and use our assets on the ground to prevent an ISIS 3.0. Do we have the willpower though ? Do we have the stamina to do what is necessary to avoid such a development ? It is not just a question of leaving a few thousand Marines in bases in Anbar, build-up a Kurdish border guard in Syria or carry on with yet another version of the "train and equip" programs that have cost us billions already. War is a dialectic of wills. And over the long run, it does not look like we are aware of the actual balance of power in the region or the odds we are up against. But short of knowing what we are facing, how can we even be prepared for the huge efforts we would need to undertake for the policy objectives to be reached ?

The current war in the Middle-East isn't just a war like any other. It has multiple players involved, some of them non-State actors, whose interests might vary according to changing circumstances and alliances. It has sponsors that use this theatre of operations as leverage for other areas, willing to trade-off some advantage here against a compromise elsewhere. And it is taking place in a region whose social, economic and political fabric has been torn apart by 15 years of relentless conflict. Today, we are  witnessing the last phase of the Syrian civil war as we have known it since 2011. In the end, Assad has managed to remain in power, courtesy of his Russian and Iranian allies who put in the necessary manpower and resources to overcome a conglomerate of rebel forces whose sponsors, both in the West and in the Gulf, never managed to agree on what it was they were fighting for. Yes, they were fighting against the regime, but what did they have in mind to replace it with ? Nobody knows exactly, even to this day.

As before, we had no proper strategy. No clearly established blueprint for what we wanted to achieve and how, or what contingencies we needed to cover if – as is usually the case – things didn't go as planned. In that regard, the biggest shortcoming in the Western approach to the civil war in Syria was not the backing of the so-called moderate rebels. As a policy choice, it may have been questionable and possibly dangerous. But, whatever … The real issue is that backing those rebels was seen primarily as means to achieve a political settlement. The only debate was about the level of military, diplomatic and economic pressure that needed to be applied so Assad would finally sit down at the negotiation table and agree on a settlement ousting him and his clan.

Arming the rebels and escalating the war was never seen as anything else but a way to gain leverage. And when the other side decided to call our bluff and escalate militarily way beyond anything we were prepared to go for, we hit the glass ceiling. For years, we had supported rebels and sent them to their deaths in the hope this might force our adversary to negotiate. What a strategic blunder ! Assad would not negotiate, he even said so. The Iranians were not going to negotiate and the Russians would only agree on terms so unfavourable to us, that they could hardly be seen as an achievement of any sort. But that phase of the war will soon be over. The fate of IS in Eastern Syria is sealed. That of the rebels in the South is a done deal. There will be violence here and there, it may last for months, even years maybe. Look at Lebanon after its civil war. Look at Northern Ireland, if you want an example closer to home. The end didn't come abruptly, in neither case. And in both countries, authorities coped for years with what might have been dubbed an "acceptable level of violence".

This leaves the Idlib area as the only remaining battlefield in the current war. Are there any doubts though as to the probable winners and losers in that battle ? The SAA may not be able to conduct major offensive operations simultaneously on two fronts, but now that it is done with IS in Deir Ezzor and Abukamal, it definitely has the ability to finish the job in Idlib in similar fashion. Much has been said about foreign Shia militias making up for numbers among Assad's forces. And it is true, there is a sizeable portion of Afghan, Lebanese and Palestinians fighters among the regime's troops. The Iranian IRGC also has advisers on the ground and the Russians rule the skies above Idlib. But the SAA is still Syrian in essence. Most of its men are Syrians and so is the vast majority of the casualties. Besides, the various Salafi-Jihadi outfits in and around Idlib are mostly made up of Syrians too.

Anyway, whether it is going to take weeks or months, whether there will be deals with this or that faction (and there probably will), in the end, Assad is going to prevail and take Idlib, even if in name only. That will be the end of the Syrian civil war and something entirely new, the premises of which we are witnessing today, is going to take over. For the entire North-East of the country, the Kurdish controlled Rojava, will become the main focus of that coming phase, together with border areas to Iraq and, to a lesser degree, Turkey. This is where the US is going to enter uncharted territory.

From that point of view, the most contentious point is related to the allies we've picked – Syrian Kurds – in our current effort against IS and the future attempts at containing Iranian influence. How on God's earth we  managed to come up with a plan that entails siding with the Middle-East's eternal losers (no offence to Kurdish readers), in order to try and check a regional juggernaut, is beyond me. To make things worse, the US is going for such a policy perfectly aware of the risks involved with regard to Turkey. Talk about a superficial attempt at reshaping alliances in the region, with a hypothetical rapprochement between Saudi-Arabia and Israel as regional force multipliers of American power versus the combined interests of Russia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, to name but the major players.

Again, war is a dialectic of willpower. In this war, or conflict of interest if you like, it's the toughest, most determined, most patient side that is going to get the upper hand. A change of direction at any fork in the road is not going to cut it. Look at Iraq. The US wanted Saddam out and thereby handed over the country to Tehran. Look at Syria. The goal was to oust Assad. Now Assad is going to stay and Russia has gained a foothold in the region like never before since 1956. Look at Iran. The not so clearly stated objective is to roll them back, with the help of Kurdish militias that are hostile to Turkey, the other regional superpower and a NATO member ...

A winning hand ? Definitely not. A sound strategy ? I don't think so. Actually I'm not even sure it qualifies as a strategy. American foreign policy looks adrift in the region. Watch out for the quicksand !

Comments

[Peter Reichard]

Make my last word fourth not forth.

[Patrick Bahzad]

Or phase 1 of a new proxy war with Iran ?

[Patrick Bahzad]

"I don't really think a society like that of the contemporary West (with the exception of Russia and maybe Eastern Europe) has the will to fight a real conflict or cold war where our superior technology is not a decisive factor" - I think you're wrong.

[Patrick Bahzad]

If reason had prevailed, we would not have had any of the FP fiascos we have had.

[Patrick Bahzad]

I don't think you'll ever going to see SAA troops shooting at US troops. That's not how proxy wars work.

[Patrick Bahzad]

Vicious cycle implies the US has the stamina and the (financial) resources to stay the course. Not even talking about human costs. And what for ? What would justify such an effort ? Are US taxpayers and citizens willing to make such a commitment ?

[Patrick Bahzad]

Probably better get used to it. We've had 15 years of this already. Brace yourself for more.

[LeaNder]

I'd say it's been very clear for the last eighteen years at least: war with Iran.

If I were the king, as dealmaker I would bring Iran and China to heels, Trump:

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/139378215000096768

Will Rex Tillerson be really be gone shortly? As some assumed? Considering he has the right adviser in Vulcano Condi now?

Remember:
"punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia"

Do French Fries ring a bell? The question is what wise advise would Rice have to offer other then "Fuck Europe", to put it more starkly?

[William Fitzgerald]

I'd say that sums it up nicely.

WPFIII

[LeaNder]

Or phase 1 of a new proxy war with Iran ?

Ok, my mind went there partially reading RSH only admittedly.

But at that point I wanted to see it clearer. No doubt interesting parties in Washington looking for money, weapons and support. It's quite easy to see were luck might loom.

Pleased to to see you. Or read you, if you prefer. ;)

[English Outsider]

Thank you for that all-embracing summary. Maybe detente soon, if Trump manages to get the Russiagate nonsense off his back? Or is that merely another Deplorable fantasy?

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-18/explosive-shocking-and-alarming-fisa-memo-set-rock-dc-end-mueller-investigation

This deplorable had hoped we wouldn't be in the position you describe, coming into 2018 - "The current war in the Middle-East isn't just a war like any other. It has multiple players involved, some of them non-State actors, whose interests might vary according to changing circumstances and alliances. It has sponsors that use this theatre of operations as leverage for other areas, willing to trade-off some advantage here against a compromise elsewhere."

Same old Grand Chessboard. That Grand Chessboard comes expensive, and many had hoped our neocons might have noticed by now that there are real people living in the squares. Or dying or running, as the case might be.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Patrick Bahzad

The Jihadists seem to have spread into Sub-Saharan Africa.

Can you share any opinions in regards to their potential spread into Central Asia as well as into the Sub-Continent of India?

[The Twisted Genius]

Good to see you back, Patrick. I agree with your analysis. "Our foreign policy is adrift in the region." We had a brief shining moment when we pounded the IS jihadis at the siege of Kobani and followed that up with the employment of up to 200 Special Forces to work with the YPG/YPJ. We didn't try to remake them into our image of a military force. We provided ammo, small arms and coordinated air strikes and let the Kurds be the Kurds as a light infantry force. I thought it was a good balance. I had misgivings when we pushed the whole SDF thing. That morphed into the mess we have now in eastern Syria. We should have left it to those 200 Special Forces. If I was among them, I would have risked sedition and advised the YPG/YPG to to seek accommodation with Damascus. What we're going to them now is what we have done to them in the past. We'll will screw them over, get tired of them and get them killed.

[John_Frank]

Earlier today, a 'senior State Department official' held a briefing on Syria.

State has posted the transcript. For those interested:

Briefing on Syria https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/01/277545.htm

[Richardstevenhack]

Agreed. But what proxy does Assad have that is willing to shoot at US soldiers? Most of his allies don't want to give the US an excuse to attack them either. Certainly Hizballah or Iranian forces in Syria don't want that. Might be some Palestinian forces that wouldn't mind...

[Kooshy]

TTG to many this outcome was clear from day one. IMO, US has no choice but to use the Kurds as the desperate fools they are. Due to US’ domestic need “must do” to suport her stupid Israel project at any cost, balancing the region’ powers against her own clients don’t leave US any choice but to sacrifice her best interests in the region. As in the past Kurds will be screwed again, nevertheless out of thier wishfull stupidity they will be ready and available to be thrown under the bus again and on demand.

[Kooshy]

In ME everything and everybody’s loyalty comes with a price, you remember who was shooting at US trooped in Iraq? They were the same Sunni Arab tribes that US has bought earlier not to shoot at them. Do you think the Syrian Arab desert tribe can’t be bought to shoot at US troops ?

[outthere]

remarkable testimony:
> Jeffrey was especially critical of the Obama administration, which he blamed for failures in the second Gulf War against Iraq. Jeffrey, who was the Obama administration’s ambassador to Iraq during the period when U.S. forces withdrew from the country in 2011, said that the administration should have accepted a secret plan to keep U.S. forces in the country. Jeffrey explained that administration officials had arranged a secret plan with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “to cheat, with Maliki’s acknowledgement,” on the final agreement to withdraw U.S. forces from the country. “We had Black SOF, White SOF,” he said, seemingly referring to different kinds of Special Operations Forces. “We had drones, we had all kinds of things,” he added.
>
> Jeffrey was reluctant to provide more details, but he insisted that the secret plan could have worked if his superiors in the Obama administration had tried it. He did not express any concern about the fact that an estimated 100,000 people had already died in the war.
>
> “It was a very big package, including a $14 billion FMS program,” Jeffrey said, referring to a program of military sales. “We had bases all over the country that were disguised bases that the U.S. military was running.”

http://lobelog.com/rare-glimpse-into-inner-workings-of-american-empire-in-middle-east/

[kooshy]

A very sobering and informative testimony on US’ ME FP by four former US ambassadors in ME, most of these points, has been and is discussed here on SST.

Rare Glimpse Into Inner Workings Of American Empire In Middle East
http://lobelog.com/rare-glimpse-into-inner-workings-of-american-empire-in-middle-east/

[different clue]

Patrick Bahzad,

( reply to comment 30),

It seems that reason won't prevail on its own. It can only be made to prevail if the reasonable can defeat the anti-reasonable in political combat.
It reminds me of what a pharmacist I used to work for said when excuses were made for why something almost worked, and would have worked except for this or that or the other. His saying was: " Well, the dog would have caught the rabbit if he hadn't stopped to take a sh*t." And that is where we are.

Since I haven't been firmly corrected for suggesting that Iran is the only government which can force the Shia supremacist regime in Baghdad to make peace with the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, I will dare to hope that my feeling in that regard is somewhat accepted, provisionally.

If I am considered to be somewhat right about that for the moment, I offer the further supposition that since Persia and Mesopotamia have been in power-conflict at times in the past . . . that the same underlying psychopower political pattern still holds. If so, the Iran gov will want to keep Iraq weak and subordinate, and a good way to keep Iraq weak and subordinate is to keep encouraging endless cycles of Sunni Arab insurgency and revolt against the Baghdad regime in order to keep the Baghdad regime helpless and dependent on Iran. To achieve that, all Iran has to do is passively refuse to make the Baghdad Shia government deal fairly with the Sunni Arabs. The Baghdad Shia government will naturally keep persecuting and oppressing the Sunni Arabs, who will naturally support Bitter Baathist engineered Sunni Jihadi insurgencies on into the future.

[Serge]

I am happy to see you writing again Mr. Bahzad,I have particularly enjoyed your submissions over the past 4 years since discovering SST, I especially enjoyed your mosul articles last year. One point of contention:You simultaneously say
>The fate of IS in Eastern Syria is sealed
while noting that the survival of IS in Iraq is all but inevitable. How can you separate the survival of IS in iraq from its historical use of the syrian communities along the euphrates as a base of support since the early 2000s? And while the scale of pure destruction in mosul cannot be compared to what has occurred from tabqa to raqqa to deir ez,looking at population alone(barely 50% of the affected mosul pop currently festering in the refugee camps equals the populations of those aforementioned syrian IS holdings), it can be predicted from my view that an assymetrical IS resistance will plague all of the former IS holdings,whether under SAA or SDF control, neither of which have particularly more power than the Baghdad Iraqis do over anbar and nineva today. I contend that IS has enacted a medium-long term goal of increasing popular support for IS through planned resistance in heavily dense population centers. They enacted this plan in the narrow streets of baghdad,samarra,fallujah in the 2000s; and they repeated it on a grand scale on the streets of manbij,al bab, Raqqa, Mosul in the 2010s. I contend that this is a long term trend to breed a generation of pro-IS iraqis/syrians,to dwarf the generation of pro-IS citizens of fallujah,baghdad,samarra which made up the 2014 wave witness to the depredations of the 2000s

[Account Deleted]

Elijah Magnier, now in 5 languages and counting, thinks it is only a matter of time before asymmetric warfare comes to the US in Eastern Syria. The Iranians in particular will be highly motivated to attack the US everywhere, should bilateral relations degenerate even further. I seem to remember them being highly effective in this goal using IEDs in Iraq.

https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/can-a-new-us-proxy-state-in-syria-survive/

[LeaNder]

TTG to many this outcome was clear from day one. IMO, US has no choice but to use the Kurds as the desperate fools they are.

Kooshy, I hesitated at TTG's comment if I should respond. Then decided not to.

But, while I am, more arbitrarily somewhat irritated by the Apo/Öcalan heroization, I was in full support for helping the Kurds against the Sunni-Islamist onslaught.

[kooshy]

Sorry but IMO your theory on Iran intention for keeping Iraq majority shia legal recognized government weak is a total BS which dont make sense for a minority sect in the region. As a matter of fact Iran' policy for Iraq driven from Najaf and Qom Hozeh is full support of Iraqi government at any cost that is internally and externally. That is very obvious on how Iran supported Iraq against both ISIS and Kurds.

[Babak Makkinejad]

The Western Fortress plays the Game of Nations, Near Easterners play the Game of Religions and Tribes. The English understood when and were to play each game, Americans are clueless.