Monthly Archives: April 2017

Middle East, Syria, United States

The powderkeg of Syria

SYRIA

Syria’s civil war has developed into a proxy conflict pitching Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, against mainly Islamist rebels backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Throw into this mix the interests of the United States, Britain, Iraq and Israel, and to a greater or lesser degree other countries in the region, and it is easy to understand why it is being described both as a quagmire and a flashpoint. Donald Trump’s decision to fire Tomahawk missiles at Syria can be seen as a proportionate response to the crime of using chemical weapons, but it needs to be weighed against exacerbating other tensions.

Take Turkey. Once a friend of Assad, its Sunni Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erodogan has become his most implacable foe because of Assad’s suppression of Sunni rebels. But Mr Erdogan’s biggest worry is that Syrian Kurds will carve out a state along his southern border, perhaps combining with Kurds in Iraq and Turkey.

The Syrian Kurds are the most effective fighters operating under US air cover against Islamic State, but Mr Erdogan regards them as terrorists. Another example is Iraq where US forces are fighting Islamic State alongside Iranian-backed militias, who are Russia’s allies.

For Iran, Assad is vital in sustaining Hezbollah, Tehran’s main tool to strike directly at Israel. Iran will fear further American airstrikes might embolden Israel to hit Hezbollah bases being set up in Syria. Given all these competing factors and factions, one must hope the US action against a Syrian airbase was a one-off.

Appendage:

Syrian factions.png

The powderkeg of Syria and the competing factions.

Standard
Government, Middle East, Politics, Syria, United States

The options of strategic air strikes and a ground invasion in Syria

SYRIA

The shocking images that have disturbed many people around the world of Syrian children gassed to death have rightly provoked outrage and disgust throughout the civilised world.

As the war drums begin to thump again in Washington, President Trump insists that the U.S. may have to act again. Here an analysis and narrative is made for two options that will be under due consideration:

Strategic Air Strikes

The top military brass at the Pentagon and NATO will have advised the President on scenarios involving air strikes.

The goal would be to punish and weaken the Syrian government and military, with the threat of more to follow if Damascus commits what Washington considers to be further crimes against humanity. However, Russia and Syria have a long-standing mutual defence treaty, dating back to the Seventies.

This means Moscow would also immediately consider such aggression against Syria as a declaration of war, leading to direct confrontation between the U.S. and Russia.

The problem for President Trump is that in Syria, Russia is well-prepared to face down such a threat. Last year there were thought to be around 4,000 Russian troops in the country, though some have been withdrawn.

Since it joined the civil war in support of Assad two years ago, Russia has also built an advanced military base in Latakia, and expanded its heavily fortified naval base on the Mediterranean at Tartus – both located in the regime’s coastal heartland.

And both are equipped with Russia’s most advanced S-400 air defence missile system, capable of destroying airborne targets as far as 250 miles away with deadly accuracy.

If the Russians chose to retaliate, U.S. aircraft flying over Syrian skies would soon be falling like flies, while few American long-range missiles – fired from aircraft carriers offshore, or military bases in the region – would reach their targets on the ground.

American generals are also likely to have warned that not all such precision-guided missiles actually reach their intended targets. The inevitable accidental bombing by America of schools and hospitals would outrage Syrians. They would rally round their president in much the same way as the Yemenis did towards Al-Qaeda – in seeking safe sanctuary – following continued drone strikes in that country. It would also, of course, undermine the moral authority – based on the murder of Syrian children – for launching airstrikes in the first place.

Ground Invasion

A U.S.-led military ground invasion – though still an extremely remote possibility – is being touted by some hawkish politicians and military experts in the U.S. as a last resort. A ground invasion might be used should the Assad regime descend into even further uncontrolled tyrannical bloodshed.

But Mr Trump surely understands that such an undertaking would be an extremely high risk consideration politically, given that it would result in massive casualties, and be fraught with logistical difficulties on the ground.

The Syrian army is more than 100,000 strong, which means the U.S. and its allies would have to deploy perhaps half a million troops to fight them, as well as their allies, and then occupy the country. That aside, there isn’t an obvious friendly country from which to launch such an invasion.

The occupying American army would quickly become a target for ISIS fighters, of whom there are thousands in Syria. Those U.S. troops would also offer the terror group a powerful new recruitment tool. The prospect of U.S. soldiers being taken prisoner, paraded on TV and beheaded should be enough to chill the blood of any exuberant hotheads in Washington.

In order to secure Syria, as well as fighting ISIS, U.S.-led troops would simultaneously find themselves battling Syrian and Russian troops, in addition to thousands of battle-hardened, Assad-supporting militia men from his ally, Iran.

In short, the drawn-out consequences of a full-scale U.S.-led invasion would be so catastrophic as to make the chaotic and bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion seem like a high school prom.

Even if U.S. troops leading a new ‘Coalition of the Willing’ did miraculously manage to occupy Syria after ousting Assad, they would then find themselves occupying the coastal region along the Med.

There, the majority is from the Alawite sect – a branch of Shia Islam – which means they are overwhelmingly supportive of their fellow-Alawite, President Assad. American troops would not be welcome by the locals.

Standard
Syria, United States

Backing non-ISIS jihadis in Syria is an option, but problematic

SYRIA

The options facing President Donald Trump in dealing with a deadly serious situation in Syria are terrifyingly dangerous. The options open to the American president include strategic air strikes, a possible ground invasion, additional aid for pro-West rebels or the backing of non-ISIS jihadis. It is to this last option I wish to clarify and expand upon.

Most non-Islamic State jihadist groups fighting in Syria have been keen from the outset of the civil war to show they have no intention of spreading jihad into the West.

The main Al-Qaeda-affiliated branch, Al-Nusra Front, even changed its name in a vain bid to avoid Western arms embargos.

It is true that when not fighting Syrian regime forces they are battling ISIS – while denouncing the later through their propaganda organs as Islamic miscreants.

Given this mutual loathing of ISIS and the Syrian regime, at first glance it is understandable that many Western politicians, as well as intelligence experts, have been eager to trumpet them as natural allies of the West.

However, for Mr Trump there will be two main problems when it comes to considering the wisdom of such advice. The first is that these groups are on the retreat on the battlefield, having been pounded by Russian airstrikes (in support of Assad) and repeatedly overrun by the better-trained, more heavily armed and fanatical ISIS fighters.

Then there are the lessons of the not-so-distant past: while such radical Islamist groups often swear, hand on heart, that they have no beef with the West, history suggests such declarations should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

The most obvious example is the Mujahideen – or ‘freedom fighters’ – who, like the Islamist terrorists in Syria today, were funded and trained by the CIA in the Eighties to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan. They achieved that – and then quickly morphed into the Taliban.

Standard