Get It Together
The United States, the United Kingdom and France attacked Syria Friday night. We launched over one hundred and fifty missiles from ships and planes, attacking Syrian chemical weapons development and storage capacities. Syria claims that half of the missiles were intercepted before they reached their target; they have advanced Russian made air-defense weapons.*
Syria is a disaster. It is in the end stages of a civil war against rebel militias, with the brutal Assad regime regaining power. Russia and Iran have committed weapons and troops to support Assad in his quest. Meanwhile, the United States is fighting and supporting the Kurds in the north and east as they complete the defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS). Turkey has moved into parts of Northern Syria, and has attacked both ISIS remnants and Kurds. And of course, the Israelis aren’t far away, and have launched recent attacks into Syria as well.
Assad has demonstrated a willingness to go to any length to survive. This includes using chemical weapons on both rebel militias, and civilians. He has used Sarin nerve gas in the past, but this latest assault was with chlorine gas. Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, estimates Assad has used chemical weapons at least fifty times in the past six years.
The Assad forces have also used barrel bombs dropped from helicopters on civilians, and have no compunction about shelling and bombing or starving any area where they find resistance, regardless of civilian casualties.
So what is the Allied strategy for Syria? President Trump stated that this was a concerted effort, one that would be a continuing operation to make sure Assad didn’t use chemicals again. Later, Secretary of Defense Mattis and General Dunford made it clear that our attack was a “one-off” mission. If Assad doesn’t resort to chemical weapons, the Allies will leave him alone.
The answer is there is no answer for Syria. Perhaps in President Obama’s administration there was an opportunity to act (as the Russians ultimately did) and overthrow Assad. But the lessons of Iraq were clear to that administration: remove the dictator and beware of the forces that are unleashed. ISIS is but one example of what could happen. President Obama chose not to intervene in the region.
So it’s hard to blame the Trump Administration for not having their Syria policy together. It’s a conundrum, perhaps without solution. But the Administration could have at least coordinated the message between the President and the Generals. The President intimated a long-term commitment to Syria (odd, as just a couple weeks ago he was talking about removing all US troops) while the Generals made it clear we don’t plan on continued action, as long as Assad doesn’t use his chemicals.
And the President, who made a major part of his Presidential campaign about not telling adversaries what he planned to do, tweeted our missile plans out on Monday. Not only were the Syrians warned, they took the opportunity to move a significant amount of their weaponry onto Russian bases, where they would be shielded from Allied attacks.
This isn’t a case of “Wag the Dog,” the 1990’s movie where the President created a war to distract from his political woes at home. Chemical weapons use has been banned since the end of World War One; even in the extremes of World War Two neither side resorted to them. It is the one limited action the US and Allies can take: do whatever else you want but don’t use chemicals.
But the current internal US crisis makes our alliance a less formidable force. This Administration has an aura of confusion and incompetence. Rebel or Assad; Syrian, Iranian, Kurdish, Turkish, Russian, British or French: it is hard to determine what the United States will do, and how committed it is to any strategy in the Middle East. It isn’t just that the Administration speaks with multiple voices and messages; there is no clear plan of action, and the positions that should be communicating US views from the State Department have been left vacant.
They need to get it together.
*Note: US military states ALL MISSILES hit their targets and all planes returned home safely They also stated that Syrian defenses didn’t respond until after the attack was over
