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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

U.S.-led air war in Syria is off to a difficult start

2014-10-12

[WashingtonPost] The U.S.-led air war in Syria has gotten off to a rocky start, with even the Syrian rebel groups closest to the United States turning against it, U.S. ally Turkey refusing to contribute and the plight of a beleaguered Kurdish town exposing the limitations of the strategy.

Not to sound cynical, but it's a limitation to the Beltway crowd, which expects everything to go well because Their People are in charge, "those are our jets," and there's elections in less than a month.

U.S. officials caution that the strikes are just the beginning of a broader strategy that could take years to carry out. But the anger that the attacks have stirred risks undermining the effort, analysts and rebels say.

The main beneficiary of the strikes so far appears to be President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have taken advantage of the shift in the military balance to step up attacks against the moderate rebels designated by President Obama as partners of the United States in the war against extremists. The rebels say they have been put in a difficult position in which they are being asked to support a strategy that has so far brought them no benefits and is regarded with suspicion by ordinary Syrians. They are now insisting they will not support the strikes unless the strategy is extended to include toppling the Assad regime — a position shared by Turkey, which hosts the rebel leadership.

A situation any experienced politician in the world is familiar with. Somehow that escapes both this journalist and the Washington Post...
Seriously, anyone with knowledge of human behavior, a sense of history, or even being a regular reader of this rag shouldn't be surprised. Attacking the IS in one area means that other actors will benefit and thus displease other interests. It doesn't take much to think the Ergodan government, with its overall objective of toppling the Syrian Baathist government, has an understanding with the IS while still supporting some of the other rebel groups. The Sauds also want to see the Syrian regime toppled and support their own brand of rebels, but not at the expense of a powerful IS who'll kill both them and their Mecca franchise. The Qatari also want Damascus toppled, but don't care who as long at Qatar is left alone or better yet, comes out with a sweet deal.

Since the outcry about the choice of targeting in the first days of the air campaign, the majority of coalition attacks have been concentrated in the three northern and eastern provinces governed by the Islamic State as part of its self-proclaimed caliphate, which stretches across the Syrian border into Iraq. U.S. officials say the strikes are working to achieve the core American objective — to degrade and ultimately defeat the militants.

Residents of Islamic State-controlled areas say the attacks have had a noticeable impact on the jihadist group’s tactics and behavior, forcing it to adopt a lower profile to avoid detection from the air.

In their self-styled capital of Raqqah, the foreign jihadists who until recently swept through the streets in armored convoys, showing off American Humvees and other booty captured from the Iraqi army, now drive around in regular vehicles, according to residents. Elsewhere, the militants have vacated headquarters, checkpoints, command posts, courts and other facilities, many of which had been conspicuously painted with the Islamic State’s distinctive black-and-white logo.

So they're not stupid. What's the next step?

The strikes are not unpopular among ordinary people in Raqqah, who yearn for an end to the militants’ harsh rule, said another resident interviewed on a visit to Turkey. He also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is afraid. Since the U.S.-led attacks began, Syrian government airstrikes have stopped, he said.

But the attacks have not loosened the militants’ grip on power, he and other residents said, or had any significant impact on the militants’ capacity to launch offensives and capture territory, as the assault on the Kurdish border town of Kobane has demonstrated. Over a two-week period, fighters swept unimpeded through a string of villages around the town. Only when they reached the town itself did the U.S. military weigh in with intensified strikes. U.S. officials have defended the response to the Kobane battle by pointing to the broader strategy, which is primarily aimed at rolling back the Islamic State’s gains in Iraq.

It's not the "broader strategy". It's the only strategy.

In Syria, the strikes have highlighted the absence of U.S. partners on the ground. Moderate rebels grouped in the Free Syrian Army were pushed out of the Islamic State’s northeastern strongholds during fierce fighting over the summer and now have no presence in the areas that are the chief target of the coalition attacks. The one front on which the rebels are battling the Islamic State, in the northern province of Aleppo, has not seen any coalition airstrikes, even though rebels say they have asked for them.
My take: The "big idea" is to use US and allied air power and have indigenous boots on the ground to "degrade and defeat" the IS. The overall strategy, for various reasons, will take years. The strategy will also have lots of setbacks thanks to many competing national interests and a reasonably competent, strong-horse enemy that really isn't being designated as one.

The problems appear to be that the strategy is coming in about a rhetorical day late and several thousand dollars short. Thanks to a focus on US domestic political considerations and a decided lack of US leadership, there's no one driving this strategy. There's no one calling in the targets anywhere in the area of operations. What passes for allied air support is fragmented by those participating nations' objectives and what operations the allies will participate in. The Sauds would like to concentrate on Syria. The British and Australians have forces but not in any number to have a significant effect. Qatar is providing facilities and some command support, but they're playing a be-friends-with-all game that undermines the strategy.

There's also no coordination with indigenous troops as to objectives and targeting. Arms supply and training of indigenous forces is scattered and piecemeal, likely due to national domestic considerations and, again, the obvious lack of a single point of leadership.

And - attacking the IS at this point is essentially like a partially-deflated balloon; pressing on one area in Iraq means the IS is free to concentrate on another, like Kobane in Syria.

Kobane's fall will mean that the IS would have a clear pipeline from the Turkish border to Aleppo. It's no small secret that the IS is using Turkey as a staging and rest area. That it also removes an annoying 'ethnic problem' for the Turks is a side benefit.

On the other hand, the primary, perhaps the only, objective of the US strategy is currently to stabilize Iraq and degrade IS capability in that 'country'. Syria might come later. The IS presence and operations in Syria are no doubt being viewed by the planners as an inconvenience and a distraction.

It's not necessarily a bad strategy. A credible effort involving a centralized and effective command and control system, an effective US foreign policy team, judicious use of special forces, counter-intelligence, operational counter terrorism, diplomatic efforts, domestic intelligence and law enforcement efforts, and above all, leadership and the will to use all of these for likely a decade, might be effective.

But I'm not optimistic.

Posted by:Pappy

#2 Did the air war get off to a start? It was difficult to tell.

Posted by: JohnQC 2014-10-12 09:03

#1 Too bad about the Kurds---otherwise...

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-10-12 02:54

00:00