So we stay in Syria until peace is achieved?
In a rare Pentagon press conference, James Mattis said a drawdown must wait for more diplomatic progress toward a United Nations-negotiated peace in Geneva that deposes Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Yet Assad continues to consolidate his power against a dwindling rebel movement, aided by Russia and Iran, even as pockets of ISIS fighters stand their ground.
Mattis says we want Assad to give up sole power. Would Assad do that after enduring the civil war that became a multi-war?
The only hope for such an outcome is that Assad's supporters who were held in line by fear of jihadi victory will in post-rebellion Syria turn against Assad in response to the pain in blood and wealth that Assad required his small base of support provide to keep Assad in the big office behind the big desk. I've speculated this might be possible but I don't actually have any evidence that it is a post-war possibility.
As I said some time ago, we have to make a decision about why we remain in eastern Syria.
Given that we did not transition to a strategy of overthrowing Assad after beating ISIL, the only reason to stay is to avoid the image of abandoning allies inside Syria who agreed to fight for us (for their own reasons, to be sure). We do not want a reputation for using and abandoning allies.
Yet to get out we rely on other hostile states to help us out? Fascinating.
If we try to hold a new DMZ at the DCL, eventually Syria will rebuild their army and come after the lightly armed militias that hold the east with the help of a small contingent of American troops (and other coalition troops, I assume) on the ground and a lot of air power that can be called in.
What will we do then? Abandon our local allies and withdraw from Syria or decide to fight Assad after failing to do so when he is weakest? We do have an interest in holding eastern Syria (protecting our local allies and keeping a buffer to protect Iraq from threats that build up in Syria, as they did in 2014). But at some point the cost of supporting those interests will exceed what we should or are willing to bear. Again, what do we do then, as I noted as an aside in this post?
Syria is up in the air, and I've said we have to decide our role there before we have a Mogadishu moment in Syria that exposes that we are unwilling to shoulder the burden of what we are doing.
The problem is heightened by the likelihood that Assad will use chemical weapons (likely because Russia is already claiming the West will arrange a chemical attack to discredit Assad) in the looming Idlib offensive; and America is on record as being willing to strike Assad to punish him for using chemical weapons. Basically we would be striking Assad at the end of his victorious war without any intention of defeating Assad. So much for the wisdom of "if you strike a king, kill him."
As a side note, ISIL does not have 40,000 fighters in Syria as the article states, showing--as some claim--we've done virtually nothing to reduce the terror group. That figure includes unarmed supporters and family members of actual fighters who are a small portion of that number.
UPDATE: More from Strategypage. They say that Assad has successfully driven hostile Sunnis out of Syria and have largely cowed the remaining Sunnis, making the chance of ISIL waging a successful insurgency lower. I had wondered about that.
UPDATE: Here we go:
The Trump administration is now pledging the U.S. will remain in Syria until the “enduring defeat” of the Islamic State group, a move that could signal open-ended American involvement in the war-torn country.
I'm not saying that we don't have reasons to stay in eastern Syria, whether or not ISIL suffers an enduring defeat or not. In the short run that is a reasonable reason and excuse to remain.
But Syria is unlikely to agree with our objective. And after Idlib is recaptured, Assad will eventually rebuild his army to a level we can't oppose with air power if Assad is willing to endure the casualties to blow past (and through) us and dig in among civilians in eastern cities currently controlled by the Syrian Kurdish-Arab alliance we support in the east.
