Tag Archives: Syrian civil war

CrISIS 5.

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There is a certain irony in the conquest of much of Syria by ISIS.[1] After 9/11, the Assad regime declined to join the American “global war on terror” (GWOT) in any serious way. Instead, it harbored Sunni Islamists. After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, large numbers of foreign fighters passed through Syria on their way to join Abu Musab al Zarqawi. One Islamist leader explained Assad’s tolerance for these terrorists: “we [are] focusing on the common enemy, America and Israel.”

In 2007, the balance of forces in Iraq suddenly shifted. Zarqawi’s fundamentalism and his savagery had estranged many Sunnis in Iraq. This led to the “Awakening” movement that greatly reduced the need for American forces while offering much intelligence to the American Special Forces man-hunters. The George W. Bush Administration surged in reinforcements that allowed the US to restore order in Iraq and to pursue the Islamists. The situation began to improve. The Americans killed Zarqawi. Soon, his surviving followers took shelter in eastern Syria, beyond the reach of the man-hunters and the bombs. This allowed many American decision-makers to start looking for an eventual escape route. For his part, Assad seems to have started rounding-up Syrian Islamists whose usefulness had now declined.

Then came the “Arab Spring.” Popular uprisings—generally non-violent—began against the tyrants who ruled (and still rule) much of the Middle East. These movements rocked Tunisia, then Egypt, then Syria, and then Libya. The Tunisian regime soon struck its tents, but it took various types of American pressure to bring “reform” to Egypt and Libya. America had no such leverage in Syria.

At first, Bashar al-Assad responded to the popular challenge by force. This might well have done the job if he had stuck to his last. His faced a loose coalition of talkers-more-than-doers who were often at odds with one another. Like the young Egyptians of Tahrir Square, they seem to have had little support among the populace at large.

Instead, however, Assad tried to tar the rebels as Islamists. To this end, he released a lot of experienced Islamists from his jails. As expected, they took up arms against the regime. Assad then cast his government as the only viable barrier against jihad. Meanwhile, the surviving Iraqi Islamists had reconstituted themselves in eastern Syria as ISIS, with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as their leader. As the civil war dragged on, ISIS took control of much of the eastern part of Syria. Then, in Summer 2014 it attacked into western Iraq, routing Iraq’s army.

The results of Assad’s policies has been appalling. Huge numbers of deaths, hordes of miserable refugees, and a society laid in ruins. Many observers regret that the powers had intervened early on to replace Assad and create some kind of viable successor state. There are reasons to question this view. On the one hand, Assad followed a particularly disastrous version of the same course that is being followed more successfully by Egypt.   There the army turfed the Muslim Brotherhood out of power and has used the struggle against radical Islam as cover for a revived military dictatorship. So far, that approach seems to be working, mowing down young secular opponents of the old regime with as much enthusiasm as Islamists. So, it was not a foregone conclusion that Assad’s policy would fail.

On the other hand, the “coulda-woulda-shoulda” view ignores the reality that the Syrian civil war is a proxy war for Shi’ites and Sunnis. It also ignores the reality that Russian agreement to yet another American intervention-overthrow would have been necessary to get UN approval. That wasn’t likely to happen after the Libyan imbroglio.

[1] Charles R. Lister, The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Evolution of an Insurgency (OUP, 2015)

Who lost Saudi Arabia?

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Diplomatic historians[1] commonly try to examine both sides of any international relationship, whether of conflict or co-operation. The United States has long had a close relationship with Saudi Arabia. There are signs that the relationship is beginning to fray. The Obama administration’s effort to straddle the divide in the Sunni-Shi’ite civil war has alarmed the Saudis. The administration’s (laudable) desire to avoid a major new war in the Middle East over the Iranian nuclear weapons program particularly alarmed the Saudis. When the United States suspended aid to Egypt after the coup that overthrew the Morsi government, Saudi Arabia more than made up the lost money. Saudi Arabia has refused to provide ground troops to oppose ISIS in neighboring Shi’ite ruled Iraq. Then Russia’s desire to reassert itself as a factor in the Middle East offered the Saudis an opportunity. In early Summer 2015, Saudi Arabia signed deals with France and Russia to build 16 nuclear reactors by 2032. Like the nuclear program of Iran, these reactors in an oil-rich nation are intended only for peaceful purposes.[2] Right.

After the dramatic expansion of the “caliphate” in Summer 2014, ISIS appears to have slammed up against its limits on territorial expansion. It has not been able to capture additional ground in the predominantly Shi’ite areas of Iraq; it has not invaded Jordan or Saudi Arabia, or Turkey; and itr has lost 40 percent of the ground it once controlled.

This raises several important questions. First, is ISIS molting under pressure from an insurgent army into a conventional terrorist force?[3] Recently, the suicide bombing of a political rally in Ankara, Turkey, the bombing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai peninsula in Egypt, the suicide bombings in a Shi’ite quarter of Beirut; and the terrorist attacks in Paris all appear to be ISIS-directed attacks.[4] Some people[5] are inclined to believe that the terrorist attacks are acts of propaganda. According to this view, the various slaughters are intended to sow division in other societies by pitting secular and Christian Westerners against Muslims, Shi’ites against Sunnis. This view seems far-fetched.

Second, if ISIS is now contained as a conventional force, how is it to be defeated? Who is going to do it? Both in the West and in the Sunni Middle East there is an assumption that the job falls to the United States, possibly backed by other Western states. One Saudi Arabian columnist recently complained that only “boots on the ground,” and not merely air strikes. can defeat ISIS. If the Western countries are afraid to suffer casualties in a ground war, then ISIS will survive. No mention was made of sending Saudi Arabian troops into a country on its own border. Yet Saudi Arabia has the third largest defense budget in the world and is waging war on a Shi’ite group in Yemen.

Occasionally, some people can escape the general Sunni refusal to face responsibilities. One columnist has argued that “Only moderate Sunni forces can defeat radical Sunni extremists.” Will Saudis Arabia send troops to fight ISIS? It seems unlikely. Will Turkey send troops to fight ISIS? It seems unlikely. Will Iran or Russia send troops to fight ISIS? It seems unlikely. Soooo…. Either the US sends troops or we let ISIS exist inside its cauldron.

[1] Except historians of American foreign policy.

[2] “How they see us: Saudis lean toward nukes, Russia,” The Week, 10 July 2015, p. 15.

[3] “Middle East: How to stop ISIS?” The Week, 27 November 2015, p. 15.

[4] In contrast, the January 2015 attack in Paris; the murders at a Tunisian beach resort, at a mosque in Kuwait, and at a French chemical plant in Summer 2015; and the terrorist attack in San Bernardino in December 2015 appear to be ISIS “inspired” attacks. If you accept my distinction. Not everoner will.

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU

Ending the Syrian Civil War.

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Preliminary peace talks for the Syrian civil war got underway in November 2015. Neither the Assad government nor its opponents have been represented so far, just the other powers for whom they serve as proxies. The peace process seems likely to occupy a good deal of news attention in 2016. What do the major participants want?[1]

Iran supports the Assad regime in Syria. Assad is a fellow Shi’ite and his opponents are Sunnis in the midst of a larger Sunni-Shi’ite civil war. Syria borders on Lebanon, where Iran supports the Shi’ite Hezbollah movement. Iranian troops have been fighting in Syria, as have large numbers of Hezbollah fighters. So Iran will want at least an Alawite post-Syrian successor state in the western parts of the country. The Shi’ite government of Iraq seems to have demonstrated a greater willingness to cooperate with Iran than with the United States.

Russia supports Assad, a long-time ally. Russia and Iran (and the Shi’ite government in Iraq) have been co-operating to air-lift troops, aircraft, and materiel from Russia to Syria. Russian aircraft and artillery are now fighting in support of the Assad regime. The Russians are not necessarily committed to Assad remaining in power over the long term, but they will want a diplomatic victory and they will want a friendly state in control of the coast.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are deadly enemies. Saudi Arabia is deeply hostile to Assad’s Alawite (Shi’ite) government. It has been supporting hardline Sunni groups (read radical Islamists) fighting against Assad. They want him gone and a Sunni-majority government in place. That is, they want a Sunni victory in this phase of the Sunni-Shi’ite civil war.

Turkey wants Assad gone and a majority Sunni government in place. Turkey’s policy in pursuit of this goal has been emphatic. However, Turkey also wants to suppress Kurdish nationalism, which has profited from the disintegration of Iraq and Syria as viable states. Turkey has been using the Syrian refugee crisis to exert pressure on the European Union (EU) for—among other things—greater engagement against Assad.

The position of the United States is very awkward. It has already declined to play any active role in the Syrian civil war. Its real concern is to roll-back ISIS as a factor in Iraq, so that it can withdraw once more. The Saudis, the Turks, and the Russians haven’t shown much interest in this problem. With regard to Syria, the US has backed down in its demands. From demanding that Assad be removed as part of the solution, the US retreated to saying that Assad can have no long-term role in governing Syria to desiring to limit whether Assad can run for re-election. Also, the US has agreed to allow Iran to participate in the talks. This has infuriated the Saudis.

What is going to be negotiated? First, what form will a transitional government take? Second, who gets to participate in that government? The Russians want to pick and choose between “terrorists” and “moderates,” with only the latter allowed to participate in a transitional government. The Saudis want the reindeer games to include their clients/proxies (many of whom are Islamists). Having angered the Saudis by allowing Iran into the talks, the US probably will have to back the Saudis in their demand that Islamists be defined as “moderates.” Even if some of them are linked to Al Qaeda.

What will happen to Lebanon in the aftermath of a partition of Syria? The place is awash in Syrian refugees and Iran’s client Hezbollah is very powerful. Will it get absorbed into the Assad-ruled rump-state? That’s likely to scare the living daylights out of Israel. It’s always something.

[1] “Syria Talks: What Countries Want,” NYT, 14 November 2015.

Quagmire.

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President Barack Obama has long insisted that any solution to the Syrian civil war will require President Bashar al-Assad to yield power to his “moderate” opponents. Russia and Iran don’t care what President Obama thinks.[1] The Russians decided to intervene on behalf of Assad in late Summer 2015.[2] Planes and personnel began arriving in September. Now the Russians have expanded their firepower in Syria with a long-range artillery system, while Iran has sent a small force that may be a spear-head for a larger contribution. Early Russian airstrikes chiefly have hit the non-ISIS opponents of Assad. Meanwhile, the American effort to raise, train, and arm a force of “moderates”[3] to fight just ISIS has turned into a highly-public exploding cigar.

For their part, both Turkey and the Sunni Arab states insist that Assad has to go as part of any negotiated peace. Neither Shi’ite Iran nor the Shi’ite Hezbollah group in Lebanon will agree to one of their chief allies being sent off, to be replaced by conservative Sunnis. Then there is the whole problem of ISIS, which is equally dangerous to the Shi’ite regimes in Iraq and Syria.[4]

All this is deeply frustrating for President Obama, who has had several chances to involve the United States more deeply in Syria and wisely did not take them. Equally frustrating is the torrent of abuse that he has suffered from Republican critics.[5] President Obama described the recent Russian intervention in the civil war as born “not out of strength but out of weakness.” In an obvious allusion to the “Arab Afghans” who flocked to oppose the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the President argued that attacking non-ISIS forces as well as attacking ISIS will “turbocharge ISIS recruitment and jihadist recruitment.” President Obama went on to say that “an attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work. And they will be stuck there for a while if they don’t take a different course.”

Perhaps spurred by the Russian intervention, the Obama administration began touting a new initiative of its own.[6] A projected 3,000 to 5,000 Arabs in northeastern Syria will be armed in order to co-operate with the much larger Kurdish forces and both will be better supported by air strikes from Turkey. The objective of the offensive will be to isolate the ISIS capital city of Raqqa. The U.S. also hopes that its Syrian clients can cut off a 60 mile stretch of the border with Turkey between Kilis and the Euphrates River to end the influx of foreign fighters to ISIS. However, the new plan seems intended to counter Russia as much as ISIS: an expanded area of air operations might cause the Russians to restrict their own strikes.

One possibility is that the Russo-Iranian intervention will not turn into a quagmire. Additional fire-power might turn the tide against the non-ISIS opponents of Assad. It could reduce the flow of foreign fighters to ISIS. It could presage a greater involvement of Iranian forces in opposing ISIS in Iraq. Another possibility is that the Russians aren’t opposed to a protracted struggle against ISIS. Russia has been fighting Islamists in Chechnya for a long time. Success could give the Russians diplomatic leverage over their intervention in Ukraine.

[1] Peter Baker and Neil MacFarquhar, “Obama Sees Russia Failing In Syria Effort,” NYT, 3 October 2015.

[2] See: “The Teeter-Totter.”

[3] See: “Arming the Moderates.”

[4] It is possible that the current Syrian refugee crisis in Europe was facilitated by Turkey in an effort to exert pressure on the Europeans to demand action against Assad. See: “the Syrian Refugee Crisis.” At the same time, Turkey is equally unable to prevent the crossing of its territory by foreign fighters going to join ISIS. Perhaps the Turkish state is just really weak. Or perhaps not.

[5] They seem to have learned nothing from the Iran disaster.

[6] Eric Schmitt and Michael Gordon, “U.S. Aims To Put More Pressure on ISIS in Syria,” NYT, 5 October 2015.

Good enough for government work.

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What follows is the sort of quibbling over details that appeals only to scholars. However, historians believe that human affairs are “contingent.” That is, even if humans are storm-tossed in some vast sea of historical processes, the actions that individuals take or do not take always have consequences.

Commenting on the troubles in Yemen and Libya, Professor Daniel Benjamin (US State Department counter-terrorism co-ordinator, 2009-2012, and now a professor at Dartmouth) said that “The forces that drove the Arab Spring [of 2011] were of such enormous dimensions that it’s unrealistic to think any president or any group of leaders could steer these events.”[1] It is possible to take a different view.

For one thing, the “forces that drove the Arab Spring” have been totally mastered. Protests in Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Djibouti, and Somalia all soon ended after largely cosmetic concessions by the authorities.   Something harsher was required in in Egypt and Syria. Under pressure from the crowds in a few urban areas and from the United States, the Egyptian military dictatorship bent but did not break. Now it has reasserted its power, using the threat of Islamism as its justification. Seeing what was happening in Egypt, the far more ruthless Assad government in Syria took a strong line with the urban malcontents.   They malcontents are mostly in refugee camps at the moment. What the Syrians were left with was an uprising among conservative Sunni Muslims who have been joined by a flood of Islamist foreign fighters, just as the insurgency in Iraq attracted hordes of Islamist jihadis. What does Islamism have to do with the American liberal vision of the “Arab Spring”?[2]

For another thing, the United States played an active role in creating the chaos that now engulfs both Libya and Yemen.   The Obama Administration exceeded its mandate from the UN when it expanded its involvement in the Libyan rebellion from protecting civilian lives to toppling the Gaddafi regime through air-power.[3] Then the U.S. walked away when the overthrow of Gaddafi opened a Pandora’s box of troubles. Much more reasonably, the U.S. also supported the initiative by the Saudi-dominated Gulf Co-operation Council to push “president” Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office. Here alone the Americans had a clear goal: to preserve the ability to hunt Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula jihadis.

As the NYT headlined the story in which Daniel Benjamin was quoted, “Killing Terrorists May Be Best U.S. Can Hope For.” That’s a modest goal. Not transformative of the entire Middle East. Not a lasting solution to the problem of radical Islam. Not the sort of thing to win someone a Nobel Peace Prize. But manageable within the limits of our power.

[1] Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “Killing Terrorists May Be Best U.S. Can Hope For,” NYT, 17 June 2015.

[2] See: “Arab Youth,” September 2014.

[3] It also helped poison Russian-American relations. See: “Obama versus Putin,” September 2014.

Shi’a pets.

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The Prophet Muhammad died in 632 AD. Who should succeed him as “caliph,” the leader of the Faithful? Should the succession be “elective” in the sense of someone chosen from among Muhammad’s chief followers? If so, then the leading candidate was Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law and a powerful prop of Islam. Or should the succession be “hereditary” in the sense of someone chosen from among Muhammad’s sons-in-law so that the blood of the Prophet would run in the veins of future caliphs? If so, the leading candidate was Ali, the favored son-in-law. The majority supported the “elective” solution: Abu Bakr became the caliph. Ali and his followers sulked and schemed. Eventually Ali seized power as the fourth caliph, only to be assassinated. Since the debate over the succession, Islam has been split between a majority which sprang out of the supporters of Abu Bakr, the Sunni, and a minority that sprang from the “party of Ali,” the Shi’a[t Ali].[1] Eventually, the caliphate passed to the Ottoman sultan. The majority of Ottoman subjects were Sunni Muslims, with Shi’ites a minority located in what would become Syria and what would become Iraq. The great majority of Shi’ites were found in Persia/Iran.

Events in the 1980s turned up the flame under this conflict. The Iranian Revolution led to the creation of a revolutionary theocratic republic. Saddam Hussein’s attack on Iran led to a long war in which other Sunni states supported Iraq. Iran largely created the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.

At the start of the Twenty-First Century, Syria under the Assad dictatorship offered a mirror-image to Iraq under the Hussein dictatorship. In the former, a Shi’a minority ruled a Sunni majority in the latter, a Sunni minority ruled s Shi’a majority.[2] The overthrow of these regimes then opened the door for the oppressed minorities to seek revenge.[3] Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, the Assad government has seen half the country secede from its control. In Iraq, the Maliki government got right to business as soon as they had waved good-bye to the all-too-willing Americans in 2011.

Both sides in the Syrian civil war have found supporters among their co-religionists abroad. Shi’ite Iran and the Shi’ite government of Iraq have aided the Shi’ite Assad government. Sunni Qatar, Sunni Saudi Arabia, and Sunni foreign fighters have supported the Sunni Islamists who are doing most of the heavy lifting against the Assad government in Syria and who have attacked the Shi’ite government in Iraq.[4] (See: “A Dog in This Fight?”)

“The Sunni-Shi’ite War,” The Week, 1 November 2013, p. 9.

[1] Wait. They’re fighting a gory war over something that happened 1400 years ago? Well, not exactly. During the 1400 years the two sects developed different religious practices which divide them. They also developed a history of conflict, oppression, and resistance linked to these two different faith traditions. So, they’re fighting a gory war over stuff that began 1400 years ago and continued—in widely varying degrees of intensity—down to the present. It probably isn’t helpful to try to analogize it to history-based conflicts in Western culture, like Protestant versus Catholic in Northern Ireland or the struggle for African-American civil rights.

[2] Do minorities create dictatorships as a defensive response to past or potential threats from the majority? That’s a political science question, rather than a historical question.

[3] While effete Italians assert that “revenge is a dish best tasted cold,” Arabs appear to prefer take-out.

[4] Is it possible to compare the Syrian Civil War to the Spanish Civil War? Or aren’t young Muslims entitled to a romantic commitment to an idealistic cause that subsequently turns out to be soiled by Great Power scheming?

 

Arming the Moderates

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Controversy has swirled around President Obama’s Syrian policy. In particular, people have talked a good deal about the need to support the “moderates” opposing Bashar al-Assad. It has been said that the failure to support the “moderates” allowed the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) to expand its power. In light of this discussion, it is interesting to revisit a piece in the New York Times from April 2013 by Ben Hubbard.[1]

According to Hubbard, the rebellion against Assad began among, is led by, and continues to draw most of its support from conservative Sunni Muslims. They were pro-Islamist from the start. In contrast, the supporters of a “democratic” Syria mostly have been “civilian activists, protesters, and aid workers.” Such people played a role in igniting the rebellion, but soon found themselves pushed to the curbside. Instead, the Ahrar al-Sham group and the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front raised soldiers, obtained arms, and launched attacks. Early small successes snowballed into greater successes later on. Rebels armed-up and added more recruits by seizing Syrian army posts, then towns, and then key resources. ISIS represents this pattern carried to an extreme.

Hubbard reported that one moderate rebel military leader had claimed that most Nusra Front recruits had “joined the group for the weapons, not the ideology” and “some left after discovering the al-Qaeda connection.” However, he acknowledged that the Nusra Front fielded the strongest military force in his area and spoke “on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.”

A year and a half ago Hubbard reported that “nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.” Instead, “More than two years of violence have radicalized the armed opposition fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, leaving few groups that both share the political vision of the United States and have the military might to push it forward.”

 

A couple of observation and questions.

Islamist jihadis come to fight for ISIS. Why don’t equivalent figures come to fight for a democratic, secular Syria? Rich people and governments arm the Islamist rebels in Syria. Why don’t equivalent figures or governments in other Arab countries arm the supporters of a democratic, secular Syria? Is it because the supporters of secular, democratic government are few and far between in the Arab world? This isn’t to argue that such people don’t exist. Television talk-shows are full of them.

The American conjecture that fighters flow toward the Islamists because they are the ones with the guns, rather than because of ideology, is belied by the many foreign jihadis who have come to Syria and by the growth of ISIS at the expense of the Nusra Front.

Would Western efforts to arm the moderates just lead to the supporters of the Islamists upping their own support?

Would supporting “moderates” sufficiently to bring them to power just create a puppet-government that has no legitimacy with the majority of the Syrian people? One that is scorned by other Arab governments?

Is it possible that “moderates” just don’t want to fight? Maybe they’re just too “moderate.”

[1] “Islamist Rebels Create Dilemma on Syria Policy, NYT, 28 April 2013, A1, A8.