Combating al-Qaeda in Syria

The authors of Combating al-Qaeda in Syria: A Strategy for the Next Administration assembled last week at the Atlantic Council to discuss their findings in the report out from The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. The panel included Faysal Itani, Senior Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, Jennifer Cafarella, Lead Intelligence Planner at the Institute for the Study of War, Hassan Hassan, Resident Fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, President and Co-Founder at People Demand Change LLP, and Charles Lister, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. Nancy Okail, Executive Director at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, gave the introductory remarks and Margaret Brennan, Foreign Affairs and White House Correspondent for CBS News, acted as moderator.

In her opening statement, Okail said that America’s failure to act early in Syria created a vacuum and security situation in which al-Qaeda could establish a strong presence. The conflict in Syria was not an inevitable outcome of early protests had the international community provided support for civil society and opposition groups in the beginning. The report outlines main efforts needed to combat al-Qaeda in Syria today, including robust population protection, democratic reform, lethal and non-lethal assistance to non-terrorist actors, and continued support to local actors.

When defining the al-Qaeda threat in Syria, Itani said that the real problem is the normalization of its ideology and incorporation into mainstream Sunni discourse. The shift to extremism and dominance of these eccentric ideas will pull in moderate groups and the broader population, further complicating problems on the ground. Cafarella expanded on this idea, highlighting that it is impossible to prevent al-Qaeda from regenerating if the US ignores how it has rooted into society and become more widely accepted.

When discussing potential US responses to the current situation on the ground, Ghosh-Siminoff said that the key issue with current American policy is its reactive rather than proactive nature. The conflict is outpacing US ability to act. Thus, al-Qaeda retains the advantage to act quickly to influence populations. Hassan noted that al-Qaeda is also a difficult enemy to deal with, not just because of its pervasive ideological influence but also due to its diverse nature as a terrorist organization, social movement, and insurgent organization, making US policy options equally as varied. Given US abstention from the conflict, Lister said power balances on the ground have changed, diminishing America’s ability to take a leadership role. According to Lister, the biggest US diplomatic potential in Syria is in protecting the moderate opposition and civilians to ensure neither al-Qaeda nor the Assad regime win the conflict.

The panel disagreed on the extent of Iranian influence in Syria. Cafarella said that the Iranian presence is inherently destabilizing because it gives credence to al-Qaeda’s claim that Tehran wants a sectarian war. This claim retroactively imposes a sectarian narrative on the conflict and justifies all-Qaeda’s combative posture. Cafarella also stressed the need for the US to develop its own intelligence picture in order to better understand not only what stability requires but also which regional actors can help achieve stable outcomes. Lister said Iranian support of Assad empowers al-Qaeda to continue fighting and allows the extremist narrative to dominate. Itani emphasized strong actors over anything else, saying that what is happening is Syria is the loss of political legitimacy among the Sunni population and ability for the strongest group to exploit the vacuum, whether Iran or al-Qaeda.

The panelists were asked how their findings on countering al-Qaeda in Syria might impact policy options under the new administration. Hassan said that the problem lies in how the US can effectively counter al-Qaeda. He said air strikes do not work because the group’s power is based on its ideological effect, so it would be better to act urgently to win over the population. Similarly, Ghosh-Siminoff framed the conflict as a multi-generational ideological struggle in which the US should support civil society and governance structures over the long term as a way to show that the international community is engaged with the people.

Another question posed to the panel asked whether the report was realistic and applicable to Syria now as the conflict continues to unfold. Ghosh-Siminoff focused on people displaced by the violence and said the US needs to provide institutional stability to the country in order for the al-Qaeda narrative to diminish in importance. Cafarella said there are still opportunities for the US to act but that it requires breaking away from previous paradigms to look at what is possible in 2017. She said it is not futile for the US to act in Syria and would send a message that the US is present. All panelists agreed that the US needs to provide a credible threat of military action in order to influence groups on the ground and have an impact on the conflict.