The Obama administration’s strategy for destroying the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, forces the United States to take sides in Syria’s civil war. But in a three-way war, that can mean taking the wrong side.
On CBS' "60 Minutes" last Sunday, President Barack Obama said that he recognized “the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance” of the United States being at war with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s foes. But the enemy of our enemy is still not our friend. Obama said that “we are not going to stabilize Syria under the rule of Assad,” however, “in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group, those folks could kill Americans.” In other words, we are killing the alligator closest to the boat.
Regime change in Syria is on the books as U.S. policy. In August 2011, Obama said that “the future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Months later, the United States began to supply aid to Syrian rebels to fight the regime.
But the White House never wanted to intervene in Syria the way the United States and NATO did in Libya in March 2011. The administration time and again sidestepped the issue, even as the fighting increased and the humanitarian crisis grew dire. The “red line” Obama set in the summer of 2012 – namely to take action if the Assad regime used chemical weapons – was drawn because the White House never believed Damascus would do it. And when Assad crossed the line, the United States had to scramble for a diplomatic solution just to save face.
Now the United States has backed into the Syrian civil war by going after the Islamic State group, one of Assad’s enemies. The president calls this “contradictory” but from the regime’s point of view it is much needed assistance against one of their most violent adversaries. It is almost certainly illegal to bomb targets in a sovereign state without permission or U.N. sanction, but Damascus will not lodge a complaint so long as the targets are Assad’s foes.
The Pentagon says the airstrikes are part of “a credible and sustainable persistent campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State group. In addition, the United States is standing up a new “train-and-equip program” to bolster the Free Syrian Army, or other purportedly moderate groups, so they can serve as the necessary boots on the ground to press the fight against the jihadists.
But this raises more potential quandaries in the contradictory three-way war. The Islamic State and the Free Syrian Army are as much at each others’ throats as they are Assad’s. From the regime’s point of view, it makes sense to keep that fight going, to let the beleaguered Syrian rebel group build up its strength and take on the more potent Islamic State group with American support. Assad can let them fight it out and root for both sides.
But at some point the Free Syrian Army will need to conduct operations against the Syrian regime. This pinpoints one of Obama’s chief contradictions. The United States has to tell the rebels that, in effect, we will help them fight the Islamic State group, but not the regime they are seeking to overthrow, and which Obama said must go. In practice, it means that if the Syrian rebels are in a firefight against jihadist forces they might be able to call in American air support, but if they are waylaid by regime troops, they are on their own.
So suppose the U.S. helps establish a well-trained, well-equipped, cohesive and effective battalion of Free Syrian Army fighters, a battle-tested band of brothers who form the elite cadre of their force. And then suppose the Assad regime, sensing a potential threat, went after this unit and was on the verge of destroying it.
Does the United States step in to save it? If we do, it means taking direct military action against Syrian forces, placing the United States at de facto war with Damascus. If we don’t, not only do we lose a trained group of men we invested millions of dollars turning into a potent fighting force, we lose the trust of the rest of the Free Syrian Army and whatever other rebel groups we are supporting. It would reinforce the rumor prevalent in the Arab world that the U.S. is secretly on Assad’s side. And it would confirm what the jihadists have been telling Muslim audiences for years: that when the going gets tough, the Americans will throw their friends under the bus.
Obama calls it a contradiction, but for the Syrian rebels it is a matter of life and death.
