Sure, this is a problem:
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with representatives of 17 like-minded nations to discuss the future of Syria last week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Following the meeting, Ambassador David Satterfield, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said the U.S. and its partners were firmly opposed to “accepting a fait accompli” in which the Assad regime and its Iranian patrons consolidate their grip on Syria with the expected defeat of the Islamic State.
Already, rebels in the west are standing down in Russian-sponsored "deescalation zones." Which is basically a half-way house before demobilization or a pause before Assad's allies gather forces to pick them off one by one.
But in the meantime, Assad's forces were able to scrape up scarce mobile forces to move east into the relative vacuum forming in the wake of our defeat of ISIL there.
By late last week, pro-Assad forces had opened a corridor on the road from Palmyria to Deir al-Zor, which had been under ISIL siege for years.
Will we support the militias/rebels in eastern Syria to resist Assad's near-crippled army, Iran's foreign legions, and Russian arms, air power, and logistics?
It isn't clear (back to the first article linked):
However, the U.S. has sent mixed signals regarding its readiness to compete with the Iranian axis for influence in eastern Syria, or even to acknowledge that such a competition is under way.
A line is forming in eastern Syria along the Euphrates River (the DCZ?), but already it is being breached by Assad's forces. What will America do?
One problem--which I've noted--is that the Syrian Kurds cannot be the backbone of the post-ISIL fight against Assad in the east. The Kurds will likely see some sort of deal with Assad for autonomy and some protection against Turkey as the best post-ISIL survival strategy.
And as I wrote early in Iraq War 2.0, the precondition for taking down ISIL in Syria should have been to build up a credible Syrian resistance to replace ISIL when we take it off the board in opposition to Assad.
We did not build up that Syrian Arab force. And here we are with Russia potentially gaining a victory in the multi-war based on a relatively small intervention that should have failed if we had any sense at all.
In related matters, Strategypage has a tour of Iran, including their Syria operations.
