Today we have added, after the Summary of the facts, the following: What are the major media gradually leaking? Which you will find by continuing to read.)
The complexity, importance and implications of the latest events in Syria
deserve careful consideration. Imperialist governments, the experts at their
service and the major media outlets at their service present it as a “surprise”
victory of the jihadist forces over the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The media refer to “the motley and controversial rebel coalition, led by
the extremist group Hayat Tarim al Sham - former affiliate of Al Qaeda in Syria
- and the “Syrian National Army”, to achieve an orderly transition of power
and, above all, restore the unity of a Syria divided for 13 years by the civil
war. This “rebel coalition” is made up, according to CNN, of the different
Islamist, democratic and autonomist movements united in the opposition.” (see
below “The game begins now, BBC)
The story of the plan of US imperialism to intervene in Syria through such
a “rebel coalition”, of its application to defeat Assad and impose a regime in
its service, as well as what is currently being said about the plans of the new
Syrian government, in its broad outline, correspond to what is written in the
article: An army to defeat Assad. How to turn the Syrian opposition into a real
fighting force By Kenneth M. Pollack, September/October 2014
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/
What is not mentioned in the article is about the moment in which the plan
would move to its final part and how it was going to be presented, also missing
is how it intends to continue it. On this, there are some questions that are
being given and that indicate the direction in which the imperialists and
lackeys are moving in this counterrevolutionary war against the national
liberation movement of the MOA. As can be seen, they are targeting Iran. We
quote a press release:
“On Sunday, after arriving triumphantly in Damascus, the leader of the
militia group that has been crucial to overthrowing Al Assad, Abu Mohammed Al
Jolani, launched a precise dart at Tehran from the mythical mosque of the
Umayyads:
"This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of
the region, a history fraught with danger (which left) Syria as a playground
for Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism, stoking corruption" (BBC,
today).
But let us not be clouded in our vision, whatever the femicides of the
Yankee imperialists and their lackeys are, they are ultimately doomed to
failure, they will not be able to impose their “pax americana” on the region,
the struggle of these nations with immense sacrifice and heroism will
ultimately make the imperialist plans fail, the guerrilla war of national
resistance throughout the MoA will jump from place to place, from province to
province, from country to country until the whole prairie is set on fire and
imperialism and the reactionaries will be reduced to black ashes and the masses
will conquer a bright future.
A summary of the latest events:
- Things appear as if the forces of Hayat Tarim al Sham had suddenly been
activated and decided to advance from their refuge in the city of Idilib,
counting on the support of the Erdogan government and the intervention of the
armed forces of the Turkish State, at the service of imperialism, mainly
Yankee, incorporated as such in NATO. These jihadist forces had advanced in a
lightning march from city to city until they occupied the capital of Syria
(Damascus) and seized power by displacing the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his
Baath party.
- Presenting the role of the military intervention of the genocidal armed
forces of Turkey as if it were simply the execution of the plans of the Turkish
State, its government and armed forces to extend its regional power to Syria
and solve once and for all the threat of a large area of the bordering
territory of both countries dominated by a Kurdish government, whose armed
forces have the protection of Yankee imperialism. But, here there is a fact to
take into account and it is, where are these forces being pushed by the Turkish
genocidaires and where are the Yankee imperialists facilitating their retreat?
How the Yankees use these contradictions in the region, that is, in Iraq,
Syria, Turkey and Iran.
- Regime change in Syria, overthrown by a “rebel coalition” with direct
intervention by NATO forces formed by the Turkish Army, not only as a
supporting force.
- Broad military campaign of US imperialism and the Zionists of Israel with
the support of their lackeys in the region against the Palestinian nation (Gaza
and the West Bank), against the armed national liberation movements in the
region and against the countries of Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iran and partly
against Iraq.
- Military counter-campaign of the armed resistance of the national
liberation movement of the MOA with the axis of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria,
Yemen and Iran, which has achieved great victories by defeating the
imperialist-Zionist genocidal plan of capitulation and persisting in the armed
struggle of national resistance in Palestine and Lebanon.
- Political and military displacement of Russian imperialism from Syria.
Which expresses a change of forces and more collusion between US imperialism
and Russian imperialism. Look at the situation in Syria and Iran in relation to
Ukraine. Thus, there is greater collusion in the imperialist struggle for the
oppressed nations for greater struggle, thus developing the contradiction
between the imperialists, the spoils in dispute are the oppressed nations.
- Isolation of Iran with respect to Syria, its traditional ally, both
politically and militarily of Iran.
- Breaking of the continuity of the logistic and movement line of the
"Axis of Resistance" affecting the communication of the armed
resistance movement in Lebanon (Hezbollah) and in Palestine. A problem that the
armed national resistance movement of the "Axis of Resistance" will
have to solve with more developed guerrilla warfare.
- Simultaneously, continuing with the imperialist-Zionist military
campaign, Israel has carried out more than 400 air strikes against Syria to
destroy weapons, that is to say its military capacity which has been destroyed
by 70 to 80% according to Zionist sources and has invaded several kilometers of
Syrian territory on the other side of the demilitarized line that separated
them, advancing in the direction of the capital Damascus. All this under the
pretext of warding off a future jihadist threat.
- The territorial integrity of the country must be maintained and the
security of the people, says the agreement of the Security Council of two days
ago, let us remember that in this highest body of the UN there are the five
permanent members with veto power: the USA, Russia, China, the United Kingdom
and France.
- As far as we know, the military and political representatives of the new
jihadist government have not spoken out in defense of the sovereignty of the
country. Despite the fact that they have made many statements about rights,
freedoms, democracy and market economy in order to please "the West."
What are the mainstream
media slowly leaking?
- That in northeastern Syria, there are groups of the Syrian Defense Forces
(SDF), mainly Kurdish, under air protection and with Yankee troops and, now,
the German Defense Minister Pistorius has said, that he is in favor of greater
German involvement in the MOA war:
„Minister of Defense in Iraq. Pistorius calls for more commitment from
Germany, by Inés Tranvías 12/12/2024 | ZDF . It was supposed to be Pistorius'
traditional Christmas missionary trip. The target is German soldiers in Iraq.
But it ends in a region in transition.
Even before his departure, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) describes
the turbulent and confusing situation in the region as an opportunity to be
seized. And he alludes to an expansion of German involvement in Iraq:
What is crucial for him is “that the signals are clear. Both for Syria and
for the region, that we as Europeans, like Germany, see our responsibility to
contribute to the stabilization of the region.” And he suggests that it does
not only have to mean military presence, political presence can also help.
- That the Russian imperialists are talking with representatives of the new
Syrian government to try to maintain their naval base and their air base in
Syria, which, although they lose political and military importance in Syria and
the Mediterranean, have great strategic value for the Russian imperialists in
their political and military projection towards the African continent.
- That, coinciding with the Zionist attack on the Syrian naval base in
Tartus on December 10, Russian warships were still anchored in the port of the
naval base in Tartus. Other photographs show that warships, for example a
frigate of the so-called Admiral Gorshkov class, were sailing on December 10 a
few kilometers off the Syrian coast. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
denied on Saturday that the fleet had been withdrawn from the country (Source:
Reuters)
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius initially declined to confirm a permanent
withdrawal of the Russian Navy from the military base. But he was aware of the
relevant reports, the SPD politician said during his visit to Erbil in the
Kurdish region of Iraq.
"But one thing is clear: with Putin's withdrawal, with Russia's
withdrawal and with the Assad regime leaving this situation, it is clear that
Russia is focusing exclusively and always on itself and its own
interests," Pistorius said. "And that is why the possibility of a
permanent withdrawal cannot be ruled out."
US speaks of disempowerment
When asked about this, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh also confirmed
that the United States had determined that some Russian ships and naval forces
were leaving Syria. "One of their key political allies has just been
removed from power," Singh said (source ZDF)
- That in Idilib the forces of the "rebel coalition" have
received financial aid, equipment, advice, intelligence and training from
British and French imperialism, which is clear from the following information,
that the head of the Hayat Tarim al Sham group, Abu Mohammed Al Jolani, always
reacted quickly to criticism from his Western supporters in Idilib, when his
mercenaries imposed measures or symbols of Islamist groups, which happened on
many occasions, and he corrected them immediately, which is why he is trusted
by the imperialists (according to: "Since yesterday, a kind of normality
has returned to Damascus," says Golineh Atai, ZDF correspondent in
Damascus.),
- That during their presentations in Damascus the members of the
"rebel coalition" displayed the Islamist flag, which was criticized,
but yesterday, at their presentation, they published the new The president of
the council of ministers of the so-called transitional government did not
display the black Islamist flag but the new flag of the country.
- That, the political metamorphosis of Ahmed al Sharaa, so far has the
following itinerary: fighter of Al Kaidha in Iraq from 2005 to 2006, to
prisoner of the Yankees in Iraq from 2006 to 2011, then to fighter of the
Islamic State in Iraq/Syria and from there to Al Nusdra in Syria from 2011 to
2016, from 2016 he renounces his previous political affiliations and as Abu
Mohammed Al Jolani is the head of the Hayat Tarim al Sham group and is now
using his real name, Ahmed al Sharaa, instead of his nom de guerre as a sign of
having suddenly acquired a more relevant role at the national level.
- Regarding the above, a source consulted sums up the above issue as
follows:
“Several analysts indicated that Turkey probably gave its tacit approval to
the HTS offensive, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressing his support
for the rebel advance.
“We can certainly say that Turkey is the main winner with the fall of the
Assad regime,” says Ali Bilgic.
“HTS is not directly supported by Turkey. In fact, Ankara also considers
HTS a terrorist organisation, as do the US and the UK. But although we do not
know how it has helped HTS in its offensive, what we do know is that Turkey has
helped it to get rid of its Islamist credentials and become a more political
and more moderate organisation” (What international groups and powers have
interests in Syria and how will they be affected by the fall of Al Assad, BBC,
today).
- That it is the US imperialists, as the same BBC note says, who are
monitoring the course of regime change in Syria:
„The United States and Russia.- According to Ali Bilgic, the way in which
the main actors in Syria act will depend largely on the role that the United
States decides to play in that country. (…)"There is a lot at stake for
the United States and I do not believe that Donald Trump will simply let other
powers fill the vacuum in Syria."
Washington also maintains a force of about 900 soldiers in the
Kurdish-controlled oil extraction areas in northeastern Syria and a garrison in
the southeast.
The role of the United States in the Syrian civil war changed several
times. But even Donald Trump in his first presidency understood that leaving
the country completely was not a "viable alternative" to protect his
country's interests, explains Bilgic.
"It was not feasible, partly because the Kurdish groups needed support
from US forces because those groups control and maintain some of the internment
camps for former Islamic State fighters and their families."
"But it is not feasible either because Syria's natural resources,
mainly oil and natural gas, are now under the control of the Kurds in the north
of the country, and that is where the US soldiers are deployed," adds the
expert (BBCB note cited).
- That, according to the reactionary newspaper El Pias of Spain, edition of
December 9, 20224, the Palestinian organization Hamas has welcomed the victory
of Hayat Tarim al Sham in Syria. But, Hamas has condemned the Zionist
aggression against Syria: "Hamas congratulates the Syrian people for
"achieving their aspirations for freedom and justice" for the fall of
Al Assad. The Palestinian group warns of any attempt by Israel to occupy new
territories taking advantage of the situation on the ground.
Syria, with the civil war and the direct and indirect intervention of
imperialism and its lackeys in the region, lost its significance in the
so-called balance of power in the region, but it retained its importance for
the logistical and rear lines of the resistance - for Hezbollah and the
Palestinian patriots - although this is relative, because Hezbollah has always
maintained its contradiction with the Assad regime, which claimed control of
Lebanon. Hamas broke with Assad as a result of the civil war, broke relations
with the regime, withdrawing most of its officials from the country. Therefore,
we could interpret that Hamas welcomed the triumph of the Islamists in Syria.
ANNEX 1:
"The game starts now": what are the different rebel groups
that want power in Syria after the fall of the Al Assad regime
The mood in Damascus was jubilant this Sunday.
Author,Lyse Doucet
Author's title,BBC News, from Doha
December 9, 2024
"They came here worried about the Islamists."
That was how one source described the mood of Arab foreign ministers who
flew to Doha on Saturday afternoon for urgent talks aimed at avoiding a
collapse into chaos and bloodshed in Damascus.
Within hours, the powerful Islamist group that fueled the rebels' rise to
power reported it had arrived in the centre of the Syrian capital.
The leader of Hayat Tahrir al Shams (HTS), Abu Mohammed al Jawlani,
triumphantly announced "the capture of Damascus."
He is now using his real name, Ahmed al Sharaa, instead of his nom de
guerre as a sign of having suddenly acquired a more prominent role at the
national level.
He will surely play a decisive role in defining Syria's new order after
this sudden and surprising end to half a century of repressive rule by the Al
Assad family.
But the leader of an organisation banned by the UN and Western governments
is not the only key player in Syria's changing landscape.
.
"The game starts now"
"History is not yet written," warns Marie Forestier, senior
adviser on Syria at the European Institute of Peace.
She and other informed observers attending the Doha Forum — a high-level
meeting held each year in the Qatari capital — note that it was another rebel
group, recently named the Southern Operations Room and working with people
living in the city, that stormed the capital.
The ranks of this force are dominated by fighters from the former Free
Syrian Army (FSA), which worked closely with Western powers at the start of the
2011 Syrian uprising.
"The game starts now," says Forestier of the start of this momentous
new chapter, marked by an explosion of celebration in the streets but also by
critical questions about what will emerge next.
As the Islamist group HTS advanced with astonishing speed, facing little
resistance, there was a flood of rebel forces in other regions of Syria, as
well as a surge of local armed groups eager to play a role in their regions.
“The fight against the Assad regime was the glue that held this de facto
coalition together,” says Thomas Juneau, a Middle East expert at the Graduate
School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa in
Canada, who is also based in Doha.
“Now that Assad has fled, continuing unity among the groups that overthrew
him will be a challenge,” he says.
The groups include an umbrella alliance of Turkish militias known as the
Syrian National Army, which, like HTS, held sway in a corner of northwestern
Syria. In the northeast, Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) groups, mainly Kurdish,
have also gained ground and will be determined to hold on to their gains.
But HTS’s ambitious, high-profile leader has grabbed the spotlight. His
rhetoric and record are now under scrutiny by Syrians as well as in
neighbouring capitals and far beyond.
The commander, whose militia first emerged as an al-Qaeda affiliate, broke
ranks with the jihadist group in 2016 and has been trying to burnish his image
ever since.
For years he has sent conciliatory messages abroad and is now reassuring
Syria’s many minority communities that they have nothing to worry about.”
ANNEX 2:
An Army to Defeat Assad
How to Turn Syria's Opposition Into a Real Fighting Force
By Kenneth M. Pollack
From our September/October 2014 Issuehttp://www.foreignaffairs.com/
Syrian refugees wave the Syrian opposition flag during a demonstration in
Amman, Jordan, October 2013. (Muhammad Hamed / Courtesy Reuters)
An Army to Defeat Assad38 min 27 secs
Syria is a hard one. The arguments against the United States’ taking a more
active role in ending the vicious three-year-old conflict there are almost
perfectly balanced by those in favor of intervening, especially in the
aftermath of the painful experiences of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The
cons begin with the simple fact that the United States has no interests in
Syria itself. Syria is not an oil producer, a major U.S. trade partner, or even
a democracy.
Worse still, intercommunal civil wars such as Syria’s tend to end in one of
two ways: with a victory by one side, followed by a horrific slaughter of its
adversaries, or with a massive intervention by a third party to halt the
fighting and forge a power-sharing deal. Rarely do such wars reach a resolution
on their own through a peaceful, negotiated settlement, and even when they do,
it is typically only after many years of bloodshed. All of this suggests that
the kind of quick, clean diplomatic solution many Americans favor will be next
to impossible to achieve in Syria.
Nevertheless, the rationale for more decisive U.S. intervention is gaining
ground. As of this writing, the crisis in Syria had claimed more than 170,000
lives and spilled over into every neighboring state. The havoc is embodied most
dramatically in the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, a Sunni
jihadist organization born of the remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq. After
regrouping in Syria, ISIS (which declared itself the Islamic State in late
June) recently overran much of northern Iraq and helped rekindle that country’s
civil war. ISIS is now using the areas it controls in Iraq and Syria to breed
still more Islamist extremists, some of whom have set their sights on Western
targets. Meanwhile, Syria’s conflict is also threatening to drag down its other
neighbors -- particularly Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, where the influx of
nearly three million refugees is already straining government budgets and
stoking social unrest.
After resisting doing so for three years, the White House is now scrambling
to expand its role in the turmoil. In June, U.S. President Barack Obama
requested $500 million from Congress to ramp up U.S. assistance to moderate
members of the Syrian opposition (such assistance has until recently been
limited to a covert training program in Jordan). Yet at every stage of the
debate on Syria, the administration has maintained that the only way to
decisively ensure the demise of the Assad regime is to deploy large numbers of
ground troops.
Washington’s existing aid to the moderate Syrian
opposition is unlikely to break the stalemate.
But there is, in fact, a way that the United States
could get what it wants in Syria -- and, ultimately, in Iraq as well -- without
sending in U.S. forces: by building a new Syrian opposition army capable of
defeating both President Bashar al-Assad and the more militant Islamists. The
United States has pulled off similar operations before and could probably do so
again, and at far lower cost than what it has spent in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Considering the extent to which the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars have become
entwined, such a strategy would help secure U.S. interests throughout the
Middle East. Indeed, despite its drawbacks, it has become the best option for
the United States and the people of Syria and the region.
PICK YOUR BATTLES
Given the powerful arguments against a greater U.S. role in Syria, any
proposal to step up U.S. involvement has to meet four criteria. First, the
strategy cannot require sending U.S. troops into combat. Funds, advisers, and
even air power are all fair game -- but only insofar as they do not lead to
American boots on the ground. Second, any proposal must provide for the defeat
of both the Assad regime and the most radical Islamist militants, since both
threaten U.S. interests.
Third, the policy should offer reasonable hope of a stable end state.
Because spillover from Syria’s civil war represents the foremost security
concern, defeating the regime while allowing the civil war to continue -- or
even crushing both the regime and the extremists while allowing other groups to
fight on -- would amount to a strategic failure. There are no certainties in
warfare, but any plan for greater U.S. involvement must at least increase the
odds of stabilizing Syria.
Finally, the plan should have a reasonable chance of accomplishing what it
sets out to do. Washington must avoid far-fetched schemes with uncertain
chances of success, no matter how well they might fit its objectives in other
ways. It should also properly fund the strategy it does select. Announcing a
new, more ambitious Syria policy but failing to give it an adequate budget
would be self-defeating, convincing friend and foe alike that the United States
lacks the will to defend its interests.
Every proposal so far for greater U.S. involvement in
Syria has failed to satisfy at least one of these criteria. The Obama
administration’s new bid to expand training and equipment aid for the moderate
opposition is no exception. Over time, supplying advanced antiaircraft and
antitank weapons to the rebels, as Washington intends, would make victories
costlier for the Assad government. But even large quantities of such arms are
unlikely to break the stalemate. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the
1980s, for example, mujahideen fighters armed with U.S.-supplied Stinger
antiaircraft and Milan antitank missiles inflicted heavy losses on Soviet tanks
and helicopters but failed to score tactical battlefield gains. Moreover,
unlike the Soviet Union, which was fighting a war of choice in Afghanistan (and
could simply walk away), the Assad regime is waging a war for survival. Heavier
equipment losses are unlikely to force it to capitulate, especially if it
continues to win individual battles.
More problematic, the current strategy does not ensure
a stable end state. Providing weapons and limited training to the rebels will
simply improve their ability to kill. It will not unite them, create a viable
power-sharing arrangement among fractious ethnic and sectarian communities, or
build strong government institutions. These same shortfalls led to
Afghanistan’s unraveling once Soviet forces withdrew; the victorious mujahideen
soon started fighting one another, which eventually allowed them all to be crushed
by the Taliban.
ARMY STRONG
Studying past cases of American military support
suggests an alternative course: the United States could create a new Syrian
military with a conventional structure and doctrine, one capable of defeating
both the regime and the extremists. A decisive victory by this U.S.-backed army
would force all parties to the negotiating table and give the United States the
leverage to broker a power-sharing arrangement among the competing factions.
This outcome would create the most favorable conditions for the emergence of a
new Syrian state: one that is peaceful, pluralistic, inclusive, and capable of
governing the entire country.
To get there, the United States would have to commit
itself to building a new Syrian army that could end the war and help establish
stability when the fighting was over. The effort should carry the resources and
credibility of the United States behind it and must not have the tentative and
halfhearted support that has defined every prior U.S. initiative in Syria since
2011. If the rest of the world believes that Washington is determined to see
its strategy through, more countries will support its efforts and fewer will
oppose them. Success would therefore require more funding -- to train and equip
the new army’s soldiers -- and greater manpower, since much larger teams of
U.S. advisers would be needed to prepare the new force and guide it in combat
operations.
The United States should
create a new Syrian military—capable of defeating both the regime and the
extremists.
Recruiting Syrian army personnel would be the first
task. These men and women could come from
any part of the country or its diaspora, as long as they were Syrian and
willing to fight in the new army. They would need to integrate themselves into a conventional military structure and adopt its
doctrine and rules of conduct. They
would also have to be willing to leave their existing militias and become
reassigned to new units without regard for religion, ethnicity, or geographic
origin. Loyalty to the new army and to the vision of a democratic postwar Syria
for which it would stand must supersede all other competing identities.
The strategy’s most critical aspect would be its
emphasis on long-term conventional training. The program would represent a major
departure from the assistance Washington is currently providing the opposition,
which involves a few weeks of coaching in weapons handling and small-unit
tactics. The new regimen, by contrast, should last at least a year, beginning with
such basic training and then progressing to logistics, medical support, and
specialized military skills. Along the way, U.S. advisers would organize the
soldiers into a standard army hierarchy. Individuals chosen for command
positions would receive additional instruction in leadership, advanced tactics,
combined-arms operations, and communications.
Because the existing Syrian opposition is hobbled by
extremism and a lack of professionalism, vetting all new personnel would be
crucial. History shows that the only effective way to do this is for the U.S.
advisers to work with the recruits on a daily basis. That would allow the
advisers to gradually weed out the inevitable bad seeds -- radicals, regime
agents, thugs, and felons -- and promote the good ones.
Since training the first cadre of fighters (a task
that the CIA would likely handle) would require security and freedom from
distraction, it would be best to start it outside Syria. Possible training
sites could include Jordan, where the United States is already providing some
aid to the rebels, and Turkey. Both countries have strongly lobbied Washington to
widen its support for the Syrian opposition. Yet both would probably demand
compensation for hosting big new base camps. Jordan already receives about $660
million in U.S. aid per year, and in February 2014, the White House pledged an
additional $1 billion in loan guarantees to help the country with its refugee
burden. Washington could offer to continue such aid in return for cooperation
with its new strategy.
In addition to being trained and organized like a conventional military,
the new force must be equipped like one. Washington would need to provide the
new army with heavy weapons, including tanks, armored personnel carriers,
artillery, and surface-to-air missiles -- vital tools for eliminating the
regime’s current advantage in firepower. The new army would also need
logistical support, communications equipment, transport, and medical gear to
mount sustained offensive and defensive operations against the regime.
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS
This new Syrian army would eventually move into Syria, but only once it was
strong enough to conquer and hold territory. For that, it would need to reach a
critical threshold of both quantity and quality. It would be unwise to send the
new army into the maelstrom of Syria until it could field at least two or three
brigades, each composed of 1,000 to 2,000 soldiers. Yet more important, these
formations should go into battle only once they have developed the unit cohesion,
tactical skills, leadership, and logistical capabilities necessary to beat the
regime’s forces and any rival militias. And when it does cross into Syria, the
army should do so accompanied by a heavy complement of U.S. advisers.
Even after the force made its first significant territorial gains, it would
have to keep growing. Its ultimate task -- securing control of the entire
country by crushing all actors that challenge it -- would require several
hundred thousand soldiers to complete. But the launch of military operations
would not have to wait until the army could field that many fighters. Quite the
contrary: it could still recruit and train most of its soldiers after its first
brigades made their initial advance.
Once the soldiers began to secure Syrian territory,
their leaders would need to quickly restore law and order there. That would
mean allowing international humanitarian organizations to return to areas that
are currently off-limits and protecting their staff while they deliver aid. It
would also require the establishment of a functional, egalitarian system of
governance. The vast majority of Syrians want nothing to do with either Assad’s
tyranny or the fanaticism of his Islamist opponents. As in every intercommunal
civil war, the population is likely to rally behind any group that can
reinstate order. The new army should thus be ready from the outset to meet
people’s needs in every city and village it wins back, which would also
distinguish it from its rivals.
Once the new army gained ground, the opposition’s leaders could formally
declare themselves to represent a new provisional government. The United States
and its allies could then extend diplomatic recognition to the movement,
allowing the U.S. Department of Defense to take over the tasks of training and
advising the new force -- which would now be the official military arm of
Syria’s legitimate new rulers.
The United States
can end the Syrian civil war on its own terms—and without committing ground troops.
Lessons from other countries demonstrate that postwar
governments are most durable when they grow from the bottom up. When they are imposed
from the top down, as was the case in Iraq in 2003, the outcomes can range from
bad to catastrophic. But allowing the new government to take shape organically
in Syria would take years. In the
meantime, areas controlled by the U.S.-backed army would require a provisional
authority -- ideally, a special representative of the UN
secretary-general who would retain sovereignty until a new government was
ready.
If history is any guide, as the new force started to beat back both the
regime and the Islamist extremists, fairly administer its territory, and prove
to the world that the United States and its allies were determined to see it
succeed, growing numbers of Syrians should flock to its cause. This surge of
public support would generate more volunteers for the army and a groundswell of
momentum for the opposition movement, factors that have often proved decisive in
similar conflicts.
One of the most baleful legacies of protracted civil
wars is the difficulty of creating stable political systems once the fighting
ends. A stable peace in the wake of intercommunal strife requires a pluralistic
system with strong guarantees of minority rights. Such a system, in turn, rests
on an army that is strong, independent, and apolitical. Postwar Syria would
need this kind of military culture to reassure all its communities that whoever
holds power in Damascus would not once more turn the security forces into
agents of oppression. The best way to ensure that the army upheld these
principles would be to ingrain them in its institutional culture from the very
start, through the long-term process of military socialization.
Iraq offers both a powerful example and a critical warning in this regard.
On the one hand, by 2009 the United States had succeeded there in building a
military that, although only modestly capable, was quite independent and
apolitical. Just three years earlier, the country’s security forces had been a
discredited and inept institution and a source of fear for most Iraqis. Similar
to the Syrian opposition today, the Iraqi army had been overrun by criminals,
extremists, militiamen, and incompetent, poorly equipped fighters. Yet a
determined U.S. program transformed the force, making it a welcomed, even
sought after, enforcer of stability across the country. In 2008, for example,
mostly Sunni army brigades were hailed as liberators by the Shiites of Basra
when they drove out the Shiite militia Jaish al-Mahdi. A key factor in this
transformation was rigorous training of the kind here proposed for Syria, which
allowed U.S. advisers to vet local personnel.
On the other hand, a strong independent army often draws the suspicion of
ruthless local politicians who try to subvert or politicize it. That is
precisely how Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki turned the Iraqi military back
into a sectarian militia after Washington disengaged. The resulting decline in
skill and morale explains why four Iraqi army divisions collapsed in the face
of the ISIS offensive in June, and why many Sunnis threw in their lots with
ISIS against Maliki. The lesson for Syria is that it’s not enough to merely
bring a new army into existence and help it win the war. If the United States
wants to see the country develop into a stable new polity, it will have to keep
supporting and shepherding the new Syrian military for some years thereafter,
albeit at declining levels of cost and manpower.
WINNING THE PEACE
The biggest question about this ambitious proposal, of
course, is, can it work? Although wars are always unpredictable, there is more
than enough historical evidence to suggest that this approach is entirely
plausible -- and in fact better than any other option for intervention.
For example, even though the United States eventually gave up on Vietnam,
it did enjoy considerable success rebuilding the South Vietnamese army from
1968 to 1972, after U.S. neglect and Vietnamese mismanagement had left it
politicized, corrupt, and inept. Although that force continued to face many
problems, it improved so much that it managed to halt the North’s invasion
during the Easter Offensive of 1972. South Vietnamese fighters did enjoy the
backing of extensive U.S. air power and legions of U.S. advisers, but four
years earlier, few had believed them capable of such a feat even with that kind
of support.
Then there is the dramatic transformation of the Croatian army that NATO
achieved during the 1992–95 Bosnian war, a conflict precipitated by ethnic and
territorial tensions triggered by the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The fledgling
Croatian force, which was supporting the Bosnian Croats against Serbian forces,
had started out hapless and incompetent in the opening months of the war. In
three years, the West’s provision of training and supplies, coupled with the
determination of the Croatian fighters, was enough to remake the army into an
efficient fighting machine able to mount a series of combined-arms campaigns
that forced Serbia to the negotiating table. (This example is particularly apt
for Syria because Serbia’s forces were far more formidable than Assad’s.)
Iraq’s history, meanwhile, illustrates both the ability of the United States to
build a relatively capable indigenous force in just a few years largely from
scratch and the perils of abandoning it to an immature political system.
In each of these cases, the factor that mattered most
was commitment on the part of Washington. Where and when the United States has proved
willing to make its strategy work -- in Vietnam, Bosnia, even Iraq -- it has
succeeded. But where it abandoned its commitments, its progress rapidly came
undone.
U.S. experience in Bosnia and Iraq also points to an
effective tactic for preventing a bloodbath after the new Syrian army wins. In
both those countries, the United States built up a force that was clearly
capable of defeating its rivals, but then Washington was able to prevent it
from taking that final step. The U.S.-backed groups fought well enough to
convince their enemies of the necessity to compromise on a power-sharing
arrangement. At the same time, U.S. pressure ensured that the winners accepted
something less than total victory.
Past performance is no guarantee of future success, of course, and each
historical analogy differs from Syria in important ways. The South Vietnamese
army’s improved performance failed to forestall its collapse once it lost U.S.
air cover. Croatia in the early 1990s was a proto-state fighting another proto-state,
Serbia. And the Iraqi security force benefited from a massive U.S. ground
presence that went well beyond what the proposed plan envisions for Syria.
The prospect that a new Syrian army could be created
from scratch and lack the power of a state behind it should give policymakers
pause, but these problems should not be deal breakers. The Northern Alliance
(the group that helped topple the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001) and the
Libyan opposition each managed to prevail with no Western support beyond
advisers and air power; they certainly never enjoyed the backing of a
proto-state such as Croatia. Of course, Assad’s troops are also more capable
today than were either the Taliban’s forces in Afghanistan or Muammar
al-Qaddafi’s army in Libya. But strong as
the Syrian military may seem in a relative sense, it is hardly a juggernaut,
having performed miserably in every war since 1948 and having fought only marginally
better than the very lackluster opposition since 2012.
How long would it take to implement this plan? The history of
similar operations in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya indicates that the
United States would need one to two years to prepare the first few brigades.
After their initial foray into Syria, the growing army would likely need
another one to three years to defeat the regime’s forces and other rivals. That
suggests a two- to five-year campaign.
Once it attained a peace deal, the new army would have to reorganize itself
into a traditional state security apparatus. It might have to further expand
its ranks in order to meet Syria’s long-term security needs, including the
defeat of residual terrorist elements. This stabilizing role would take years
longer but would be far less demanding than fighting the Assad regime,
especially if the United States kept up its support for Syria’s new
institutions and its economic and political reconstruction.
Critics will inevitably argue that this road map for Syria is infeasible
today, coming too late to make a difference. Yet analogous arguments have
proved wrong in the past. In March 2005, for example, I gave a briefing on Iraq
to a small group of senior U.S. officials, presenting the strategy I had been
advocating since early 2004: a shift to true counterinsurgency operations, an
effort to reach out to the Sunni tribal leaders of western Iraq, the addition
of thousands of U.S. forces, and a bottom-up process of political reform to
encourage power sharing. My audience responded that although this plan might
have worked in 2003 or even 2004, by 2005 Iraq was simply too far gone. Yet
what I was prescribing was the very strategy that General David Petraeus and
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, would employ two years later -- and
that would turn the tide of the conflict.
Likewise, there is no reason to believe that it’s too
late for Syria. The civil war there will not end anytime soon, despite the fact
that expanded Iranian and Russian assistance have allowed Assad loyalists to
make significant gains. The most probable scenario is that the regime’s
advances will prove limited and the resources flowing to the rebels from their
foreign backers will cause a stalemate. Syria will burn on, while U.S.
officials continue telling themselves that the time for action has passed.
Even if Washington adopted this course of action, many more Syrian lives
would be lost before it could succeed. The only way to save those lives,
however, would be to deploy U.S. ground forces -- a proposal that, given the
American public’s sentiment, is a nonstarter. Barring boots on the ground, the
approach described here is the best chance to avoid hundreds of thousands of
additional casualties.
SUPPORT FROM THE SKIES
Another key question is whether the plan would require
U.S. air power, since an air campaign would make this strategy far more
expensive in both financial and diplomatic terms. At least one case, the Bosnian war,
suggests that U.S. air support may prove unnecessary. During that conflict, it
was a Croatian (and Bosnian) ground assault, undertaken with barely any Western
air cover, that made the difference. Although NATO flew 3,515 sorties during
the conflict, none was in direct support of the Croatian forces, and most of
the targets were unrelated to the ground fighting. Moreover, the unclassified
CIA history of the war concluded that the NATO air strikes contributed only
modestly to securing Serbian acquiescence to the Dayton peace accords; Croatian
battlefield victories mattered far more.
Most of the other historical evidence, however,
indicates that U.S. air support would be needed. In Afghanistan in 2001 and Libya in
2011, Western air power paved the way for the opposition victories. Looking
further back in time, even after the South Vietnamese army matured enough to
operate without U.S. ground support, it remained dependent on massive U.S. air
assistance -- albeit while battling a foe much tougher than the Assad regime.
Nevertheless, the fact that the proposed strategy could require air power
does not mean that the American public will necessarily oppose it. Public
opinion surveys in the mid-1990s, during the Bosnian war, showed firm and
consistent opposition to U.S. intervention, even if undertaken multilaterally.
Yet those same polls reported considerably higher support for air operations.
Likewise, few Americans objected when the Obama administration contributed U.S.
air forces to the NATO air campaign in Libya in 2011.
Beyond air power, two other variables would heavily influence the ultimate
cost of the strategy proposed here: how much Washington spent on the new Syrian
army, and whether it could convince its allies to shoulder a part of the
burden. Given the costs of similar past operations, one can reasonably expect
the new fighting force to require $1–$2 billion per year to build. The United
States would need to budget an additional $6–$20 billion per year for air
support and perhaps another $1.5–$3 billion per year for civilian aid.
Adding these sums together yields a total operating budget of $3 billion
annually for two or three years at the lower end of the price scale. If an air
campaign on the scale of that in Bosnia, Afghanistan, or Libya were required,
the annual price would rise to roughly $9–$10 billion for as long as the
fighting continued. And if the United States were forced to provide twice as
much air power as it did in those earlier wars, the cost could reach $18–$22
billion per year. Following a political settlement, Washington’s continued
support for the new government would probably require $1–$5 billion in civilian
and security assistance annually for up to a decade. By comparison, Afghanistan
cost the United States roughly $45 billion a year from 2001 to 2013, and Iraq,
about $100 billion a year from 2003 to 2011.
Of course, the numbers would come down considerably if
the United States won financial support from its allies in Europe and the
Middle East, especially the Persian Gulf states. For years, Gulf leaders have
insisted in private that they would fund most or all of such an effort. And they have paid
for similar operations in the past. Saudi Arabia heavily supported the covert
U.S. campaign against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and, along with Kuwait
and other Gulf states, the U.S. operations during the Gulf War. Gulf leaders
also threw their weight behind the U.S. decision to intervene in Libya. There is no question that these states see the
outcome of the Syrian conflict as vital to their interests; they have already
spent billions of dollars backing various Syrian militias. So they would likely
support the scheme outlined here -- although Washington should gauge their
interest before deciding whether to pursue it.
RAISING THE BAR
If the Obama administration does decide to build a Syrian army, it should
do so with its eyes open, for the strategy would entail some risk of
escalation. Few, if any, wars work exactly as planned without incurring
unexpected costs, and some turn out to be far more expensive, messy, and deadly
than anticipated. Afghanistan and Iraq are both cases in point, and they also
demonstrate that a country typically gets the worst outcome when it prepares
for nothing but the best. If the United States pursued the strategy proposed
here, it would need to be prepared to lose some American lives. U.S. pilots
could be shot down and U.S. advisers could be wounded, killed, or captured.
The Assad regime could also launch missile strikes
against U.S. allies in retaliation or mount terrorist attacks abroad. Syria’s
allies Iran and Hezbollah could respond as well, likely by attacking U.S.
advisers, just as they did U.S. troops in Iraq. The fear of Washington’s
counterattack could deter Tehran from staging a more direct assault but might
be insufficient to scare off Hezbollah, since the fall of the Assad regime
would imperil Hezbollah’s very existence. And no matter what country ultimately
hosted the new Syrian army during the early stages of its development, that
country would need guarantees that the United States would help defend it
against enemy retaliation.
Finally, the new Syrian army could still lose the war. Given the limited
capability of Assad’s forces and the previous successes of Western air power in
similar circumstances, such a scenario seems unlikely, but it should not be
ruled out. The same goes for a slightly more realistic worry: that the
opposition would conquer the country but then fail to secure it. The new Syrian
army would then continue to face a grueling and destabilizing battle with
extremists and insurgents while struggling to establish law and order, a
challenge that undermined postwar governments in both Afghanistan and Libya.
In all these scenarios, the pressure on the United States to escalate its
involvement would increase. The strategy outlined here is designed to minimize
this risk, but it cannot eliminate it. No one should embrace this approach
without recognizing that it could at some point confront Washington with the
difficult choice between doubling down and walking away.
THE COSTS OF INACTION
Since the fall of Mosul in June 2014, the Syrian and
Iraqi civil wars have become entangled. Any strategy to deal with one must also
deal with the other. The region’s sectarian fault lines complicate matters
further. In Syria, the Sunni majority is in revolt; in Iraq, the Sunni minority
is. In both countries, the United States is seeking to separate the moderate
Sunni opposition from more radical groups, such as ISIS. But only in
Syria does it aim to depose a Shiite regime. In Iraq, Washington hopes to
remain on good terms with the Shiite-dominated government, even as it insists
that Baghdad enact immediate and far-reaching reforms.
The strategy proposed here would serve U.S. interests
in both countries. Although the contemplated new Syrian army should be neutral,
it would inevitably be dominated by Sunnis. Its victories over both the
Shiite-dominated Assad regime and the Islamist militants in Syria would make it
a model for Iraq’s moderate Sunni tribes. These groups would be key to
defeating ISIS, just as their support proved crucial for the U.S. troop surge
in Iraq in 2007–8. Decisive U.S. support for the Syrian offshoots of those Iraqi
tribes -- coupled with Washington’s commitment to build the kind of inclusive,
pluralistic, and equitable state in Syria that moderate Sunnis seek in Iraq --
could help turn Sunnis across the region against ISIS and its ilk.
Events in Iraq have starkly demonstrated the costs of inaction. Whatever
choice the United States makes, it should not make it in the mistaken belief
that there is no plausible strategy for victory at an acceptable cost. The United States can end the Syrian civil war on its
own terms and rebuild a stable Syria without committing ground troops. Doing so
could take a great deal of time, effort, and resources. It will certainly
take the will to try.