So what’s the reason the Obama administration has shifted its policy on Syria? The Christian Science Monitor puts it into perspective in a way you won’t get from reading many liberal and conservative ideological websites:
President Obama’s foreign-policy realism is on full display this week on two fronts related to Syria.
First, the United States sat down Friday with Iran at international talks on Syria – despite years of opposing any diplomatic role for Tehran in efforts to end the Syrian civil war.
Second, the White House announced Friday that the US will send just under 50 special operations forces to northern Syria – a move that reverses the president’s pledge from more than a year ago not to put boots on the ground in the fight.
In both cases, the developments reflect recognition that conditions on the ground have changed and that on both the military and diplomatic fronts, new approaches are required.
The problem with American politics is that both sides (uh, oh, the False Equvilancy Police are being sent to knock on my door as you read this) often have knee-jerk reactions to use of the military. But realities change and using geopolitical perceptions based on past conditions is at the very least unwise — given the dangers. MORE:
The special operations forces will be deployed to advise and work alongside Kurdish and other opposition forces that have secured and now hold territory once controlled by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS or ISIS).
The deployed forces “will be an important force multiplier,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest Friday, as he argued that the deployment is not so much a change of strategy as a shift because it involved “building the capacity of local forces on the ground.”
The announcement does reflect a move away from the failed US effort to train and equip large numbers of opposition fighters and is a reemphasis of parts of the anti-IS strategy that Defense Department officials consider to have shown more promise.
In addition to the troop deployment, the administration will also be sending additional fighter jets to Turkey to ramp up airstrikes on IS positions.
Accepting Iran
The diplomatic shift to accept Iran at the Syria conference table after years of refusal suggests acceptance of the argument that Syria’s civil war, now in its fifth year, cannot be resolved without Iranian participation.With Iran’s involvement in Syria deepening in recent months, the Obama administration appears to have concluded that the Iranian footprint in Syria’s war has become too large to keep the Iranians outside the diplomatic tent.
But that does not mean the US expects Iran to play a positive role in the international talks on Syria that were held Friday in Vienna, or that the US expects the Iranians to suddenly move away from supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Instead, the US reversal on Iran’s participation reflects a willingness to test Iran’s diplomatic stance – particularly since the successful conclusion of the Iran nuclear talks in July – as well as a desire to try new options for bringing Syria’s devastating war to a close.
But some have misgivings:
“With the Iranians at the table, we now have the three parties least interested in a genuine transition in Syria as opposed to simply smashing rebel groups – Assad’s forces, the Russians, and the Iranians, all feeling they are dealing from a position of strength,” says Wayne White, a former State Department intelligence analyst on the Middle East who is now an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “It’s not positive for the negotiations.”
Accepting Iran at the table disregards the trouble that Iran has caused the US in the region for decades, particularly next door in Iraq, Mr. White says.
“Iran has not played a positive role in the Syria-Iraq region for years, so I don’t know why we should go for this idea that they might now be amenable to behaving better and coming down on the side of a political transition encompassing all Syrians,” he says.
“We’re forgetting that [Iran] backed the incredibly ruthless and divisive Maliki regime in Iraq that arguably gave us the ISIS problem, and sent in the Shia militias that have committed sectarian cleansing in Iraq,” he adds. “In Syria, they are dealing with proxies that have had no compunction about committing atrocities, particularly against Sunni-Arab Syrians.”
And so much is at stake.
You have to wonder if some of the people dismissing ISIS as in no way resembling the barbarity of the Nazis or a real threat to the United States or Europe have even read news reports or studied history. No, ISIS hasn’t killed 6 million Jews and millions of others.Yet. But if they could?
Does anyone seriously think they won’t use a nuke if they can get one — no matter of what capacity? And if they’re beheading and otherwise brutally murdering men, women and children (Christians, other Muslims, journalists and other hostages) and making inroads in taking new territory and holding onto it, it’s more than just a news story happening somewhere else in the world. It’s a taste of the brutality of the horrors of the 20th century. Revisited.
Add to that the complications now of not-so-goodguy-Iran and not-so-goodguy Russia hurled into the boiling Syrian stew. So Syria may make for a nice bumper sticker but is far more complicated than that or a sound byte.
The U.S. and Iran are both dedicated to destroying ISIS and are both assisting the Iraqi government, but things are more complicated on the Syrian side of the border. Iran and Russia are likely to reject a political settlement that involves removing Assad from power. The U.S. still maintains that Assad should step down, although more recently the Obama administration has suggested it may be willing to accept a temporary transitional role for the embattled Syrian leader.
Along with Russia, Iran has recently stepped up its involvement in the conflict, contributing hundreds of troops to fight alongside regime forces and Hezbollah fighters against rebels in Northern and Western Syria. The forces have reportedly suffered heavy casualties, including the recent deaths of two senior commanders in the Revolutionary Guards. Iran’s investment in the conflict has been much more substantial in both blood and treasure than the United States, and it certainly has an incentive to try to bring the war to an end. It potentially has the ability to put meaningful pressure on Assad.
At the moment, it’s hard to imagine a settlement that would satisfy both Washington and Tehran, never mind Moscow, but it’s not as if sidelining Iran from the process has really accomplished much either. Republicans will undoubtedly accuse the administration of another capitulation to Iran, but at this point Obama doesn’t seem too concerned about that.
graphic via shutterstock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.