Page 1 of 2 US pivots at the gates of hell
By Peter Lee
I believe that President Obama tipped his hand as to the basic US strategy for dealing with Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria when he stated that the US goal was to reduce IS to "a manageable problem".
Once the appalling implications of this apparent endorsement of a permanent presence for the transnational, decapitation-happy caliphate sank in, his Vice President Joe Biden was sent out for damage control with the hyperbolic message that the US would pursue IS "to the gates of hell".
Well, truth be told, actually entering the gates of hell and thoroughly sorting out the mess it created in the Middle East is
apparently the one thing that the US isn't very eager to do.
One of the ironic things about the current situation is that, as the United States has pinned the "Hitler of the Month" label on a succession of adversaries - Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Kim Jung-eun, Bashar al-Assad, Vladmir Putin - it seems unwilling and unable to so characterize the most Hitlery of forces to emerge in recent years, the IS Caliphate.
The IS Caliphate is an expansionist, belligerent, intolerant, and eliminationist threat to people and states in the region.
If the UN Security Council clubbed together to mount a genuine transnational effort against IS, it would be doing the kind of thing it was originally designed to do at the close of World War II.
It would also involve an intensive counter-insurgency operation in Iraq and Syria along the lines of the Anbar Awakening which, not to put too fine a point on it, was a tag-team exercise in local identification of, and JSOC death squad liquidation of, al-Qaeda assets in Anbar province, coupled with massive financial subsidies to employ and sideline potential AQ fighters and allies. The current analog would be clubbing together with Bashar Assad in Syria, the Saudi and Turkish military, and, hopefully, some cooperative sheiks in Sunni Iraq, to drive IS to ground.
But we're not going to get that. For one thing, the US and UK have already stated that they will not work with Assad in planning their anti-IS air strikes in Syria because "we don't like him" is sufficient justification for brushing aside Syrian sovereignty.
As Ian Black approvingly tells us in that reliable chronicle of neoliberal folly, the Guardian:
The pragmatic western case for working with the Syrian president is that the war is at a stalemate and his cooperation is vital in the face of the Isis menace.
…
Obama and Cameron are not buying this. Additional arguments deployed against engagement with Assad are that he cannot be trusted and that helping bolster his position would alienate Sunnis in Iraq and Syria whose support is needed to fight Isis. In the words of Nadim Shehadi, the Chatham House analyst, the Syrian leader has all the credibility of a convicted arsonist offering his services as a firefighter. [1]
It could also be said that working with Assad would alienate Sunnis more powerful and influential than local figures in Iraq and Syria, specifically the leaders running Saudi Arabia and Turkey - both of whom has invested considerable political capital in the "Assad must go" campaign and have accelerated Syria's slide into hell by pouring money, arms, and jihadis into the conflict.
The US, which also bet on the oust-Assad line, probably didn't need much convincing to slap aside Assad's offer of assistance.
There is also a more dubious game afoot.
The West has apparently decided to put its chips on a reworking of the heretofore terminally inept and corrupt "moderate" anti-Assad alliance instead of working out a modus vivendi with the Syrian government.
Cynically and, I'm afraid, accurately, the US position might be characterized as: Assad was beating the West and Gulf Cooperation Council in Syria, but the unnerving rise of IS has upset the chessboard. Now the US has an opportunity to go in, help set up the chessboard, rearrange the pieces in a more favorable configuration … and add a few pieces of its own.
And I expect the prospect of sticking it to Assad was the deciding factor in White House deliberations as to the political advisability of dipping America's toe into the Middle East inferno once again. Peace and stability in the Middle East might be beyond our reach in other words, but nailing Assad after four years of invective, sanctions, anti-diplomacy, and subversion: that's a Win! for a beleaguered foreign policy team that has not much to show for its recent tenure.
The devolution of President Obama's foreign policy in his second term into what I characterize to be moronic, reactive, middle finger hugger-mugger from China to Ukraine to Gaza to the Middle East has not, I believe, received the attention it deserves from America's army of plugged-in Washington journos. Instead of "not doing stupid sh*t" and pivoting away from the Middle Eastern morass to Asia, the US is back in the thick of it, stirring the sh*t in a manner clumsy and shortsighted enough to put America's friends as well as adversaries on notice that having the US apply its foreign policy expertise to their region is not necessarily an unalloyed good.
The obvious explanation is the reign of Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, and the president's first choice for Secretary of State before Benghazi sidelined her and John Kerry got shoehorned into the position. She appears to be a combative short-term oriented pol who-I never thought I'd say this-makes me nostalgic for the calculated opportunism of Hillary Clinton.
So, instead of a multinational effort to uproot IS and perhaps restore Syria and Iraq to some semblance of normalcy, we get an alliance of the usual neoliberal suspects, led by the United States and NATO-the "core coalition" of Christian Atlanticist powers plus Turkey-to pursue a few agenda items that were previously unattainable and are not exactly harbingers for a return to stability in the Middle East.
First, NATO, America's murderously dysfunctional European strategic asset, is reaffirmed as the global US partner in geopolitical mischief, ready to reprise the role as handmaiden to disaster that it performed so enthusiastically in Afghanistan and Libya.
Second, the ouster of Nouri al-Maliki as Iraqi prime minister, whose removal was unambiguously linked to the provision of US military support to Iraq against IS, but seems to mean little more than reassurance to Saudi Arabia that the US is not dancing exclusively to a Shia/Iranian tune in Iraq.
Maliki is now a VP in the new Iraqi government and the prime minister is a Shia empty suit, Haidar al-Abadi. The breakthrough Maliki's removal was supposed to catalyze - the appearance of an anti-IS alliance of Iraqi Sunni politicians - has yet to materialize. Or, per Reuters:
A senior Kurdish politician listed the tasks, which include winning Sunnis back from armed revolt, persuading Kurds not to break away and convincing Abadi's own Shi'ites that he has the steel to protect them from fighters bent on their annihilation.
"He has to make Maliki happy. He has to make the (Shi'ite religious leadership) happy. He has to make the Sunnis happy to turn them against IS. He has to make us very, very happy. He has to make the Americans happy, he has to make the Iranians happy."
"Can he? I don't think so."
…
Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Bashari, a 52-year old leader of Sunni anti-government demonstrations Maliki tried to crush last year, said Abadi must distance himself from his predecessor.
"Abadi should let the Sunnis feel that they are first class citizens, not like Maliki, who made them feel that they are not part of this country."
He said Abadi will fail to woo the Sunnis unless he can disband the Shi'ite militias that Maliki first opposed but in the past year increasingly relied on to defend Iraqi cities when the army proved incapable.
"Maliki was stronger than him and he couldn't do it," Bashari said, adding that Sunnis would never fight against Islamic State as long as they see the Sunni Islamist fighters as protectors against the Shi'ite militias.
"The tribes will never fight any group which defended their cities, including the Islamic State. [2]
Not quite time for US to get the "Iraq-We Fixed It!" gold star in my opinion.
Third, a renewed effort to use the anti-IS campaign to reconstitute and enhance the anti-Assad opposition without helping Assad.
Job one: use the IS threat to compel the Syrian Kurds-an effective regional military force which to date showed a wise distaste for joining the floundering anti-Assad crusade and instead concentrated on securing its ethnic stronghold-to join hands with the Free Syrian Army. Per Reuters on the grand strategy, which is scheduled for a test drive in a joint operation north of Aleppo:
The fight against Islamic State could at last win Syria's Kurds the Western help they have sought, but they must first clarify their relationship to President Bashar al-Assad and reassure Turkey that they won't cause trouble on its border.
…
Part of his plan is to enhance support for moderate Sunni Arab groups, who are fighting against both Assad and Islamic State. The Kurds say they are cooperating with the same groups, notably in a battle for territory north of Aleppo.
…
For such cooperation to take hold, the Syrian Kurds and moderate Sunni Arabs must shelve suspicions of each other's aims. Aleppo could be a test case. The Islamic State's advance in territory north of the city is threatening supply lines for other Sunni Arab groups and also poses a risk for Kurdish interests in the town of Afrin and elsewhere. [3]
On the other hand, I don't think we'll be seeing the US helping the Syrian government reconquer the key provincial capital of Raqqa and sweep IS fighters out of the Taqba Air Base very soon.
Safe to say, an important calculus for the United States in striking against IS will be, can the "moderate Syrian opposition", and not Assad, seize and hold the territory that IS abandons? Can attacks and the promise of close US support and weapons be orchestrated to achieve the redefection of FSA fighters out of the IS ranks and into the "moderate" coalition? Can the war against IS be fought while demanding the departure of Assad and the establishment of a "government of national unity" in Damascus as the price for US aid?
Plenty of employment, in other words, for America's eager but not particularly successful Middle East boffins, who have campaigned through the region for the last three decades under the banner "This Time We're Really Gonna Get It Right!" (alternate mottos: "There Are No Bad Policies, Only Bad Clients" and "When In Doubt, Elevate Process Above Results").
Assad, of course, will not stand idly by, nor will his allies in Russia and Hezbollah. And, if the US plans for Syria hinge on Iran throwing Assad under the bus for the sake of the nuclear deal, that may not happen either. My chosen metaphor is, The US is trying to play the Syria regime change melody on a piano as it's thrown out of a window. I'm expecting crashing, screaming, and horror, and not much beautiful music.
In an attempt to explain away the US/KSA/Turkish role in the rise of IS and justify giving the back of the hand to Assad, a considerable amount of flummery has been printed in the Western press along the lines of "Assad allowed the IS threat to burgeon". Actually, Assad had his hands full dealing with a foreign supported insurrection that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey laid on after the outgunned domestic democratic movement and the woeful MB-dominated ?migr? opposition failed to seal the regime-change deal.
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