How to Lose Friends and Influence No One – Obama’s Failing Syrian Doctrine

When President Obama spoke to the American people on September 10, 2014, the people of Syria listened.   They heard a message they had prayed would be spoken for three years.  They heard the leader of the free world tell his nation that the time to act against terror in Iraq and also in Syria had come and that America, alongside Arab allies, was ready.

The message was not precisely what the people of Syria had hoped it would be, but it was enough to restore hope. To moderate Syrians, the regime of Bashar al Assad is the primary enemy and ISIS the secondary.  They understood, however, that the United States was focused on ISIS and they accepted this political reality. They also understood that we needed them fighting on the ground, and they agreed.

In his remarks on September 10^th, President Obama said, “In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people -- a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost.  Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all. “

The strategy seemed straightforward: The U.S. and its allies would bomb ISIS and arm moderate forces on the ground to route the Islamic State out and destroy it. Key also were the president’s words that the Assad regime “will never regain legitimacy it has lost” because to moderate Syrians, any successful long-term strategy must include a Syrian future free from Assad.

Less than a month later, however, the moderate Syrians of Aleppo, and the Idlib province feel betrayed, humiliated and abandoned. Before the coalition launched its strikes, the civilians of these regions endured three years of merciless attacks from Assad. After the attacks began, Assad’s assault seemed to double in both frequency and intensity.  As the U.S. strikes military targets by night, Assad strikes civilian areas around those targets by day with a renewed fierceness.

Day after day, the moderates who were to be our “boots on the ground,” have watched an air campaign that, either by design or lack of ground intelligence, appears to be coordinated with Assad and is destroying the very groups that are best equipped and motivated to fight ISIS, as well as, softening resistance to Assad’s attacks on civilian populations.

Adding to the rapidly growing frustration among the moderates is the complete lack of coordination between the U.S. led forces in the air and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) which is supposed to be our essential ally on the ground. Reports of allied airstrikes on empty buildings that FSA knew ISIS had abandoned and near strikes on actual FSA encampments understandably gives little encouragement to these fighters.

As mentioned in a previous post, early in the coalition’s air campaign the Administration ordered strikes against the Al-Qaeda linked Al Nusara Front outside the city of Idlib.  To the United States Al Nusara Front is clearly a terrorist organization, but to the people waking to the sound of regime barrel bombs each morning anyone fighting Assad is a friend – if only temporarily so.

The strongest force that stood between the innocent civilians of Idlib and the terrorizing death squads of Assad’s army was Al Nusara Front.  By bombing them, we freed Assad to aggressively move more freely through the region. State controlled media announcements after this early attack boasted of the collaboration between Assad and the coalition. The carnage left by Assad’s forces in civilian areas provided strong evidence to the people that this boasting was rooted in fact.  

Certainly, we should deal with Al Nusara Front, but the impact of our timing must be recognized and consideration given to when a single battle should be fought if the goal is to win the larger war.

Yesterday, the coalition attacked and destroyed forces fighting with the al Hak Brigade. This group is not affiliated with ISIS or Al Qaeda. They are, however, fierce foes of Assad and once again, we killed forces protecting the very people we must engage and support.

Assad has repeatedly told the Syrian people that his regime is coordinating with the U.S. and its allies to jointly fight terrorists.  Obama’s current strategy is making Assad appear completely correct and is thereby destroying any chance we have to find moderate support to help us in our fight.

If we are to regain the trust of the moderate citizens of Syria, if we expect to arm a moderate force to battle ISIS and if we intend for this force to be our force, the people living under the three-year siege of the Assad regime must believe we are on their side.  Today, they are losing trust and we are losing the ability to influence this population that, as the president said, is the, “best counterweight to extremists like ISIL...”

A first step to change this course that is quickly cementing is to provide No-Fly Zones around moderate held areas. The United States and our allies must say to Assad that the time of indiscriminately targeting civilians is over, that his helicopters carrying barrel bombs have flown their last mission into Aleppo and other areas, that the people of this nation at last have the right to walk away from rubble and into a future free of chaos and war crimes.

If we were to do this, the moderates across the north eastern regions, as well as, around Homs and Damascus would gladly put on boots, take up arms, and work as true partners with the goal of defeating ISIS.

Finally, when the president spoke to the Estonian people on September 30, 2014 he said,

And freedom will win -- not because it’s inevitable, not because it is ordained, but because these basic human yearnings for dignity and justice and democracy do not go away.  They can be suppressed.  At times, they can be silenced, but they burn in every human heart in a place where no regime could ever reach, a light that no army can ever extinguish.  And so long as free peoples summon the confidence and the courage and the will to defend the values that we cherish, then freedom will always be stronger and our ideas will always prevail no matter what. 

We can only hope and pray that the president’s words prove true in Syria, and the values we cherish and the freedom the people of Syria fight for proves stronger than our current failing policy.