Tag: Al Qaeda
Faute de mieux
I’ve been hesitating to comment on the Russian/American agreement on Syria. So far as I know no text is available publicly. As the devil is in the details, it is important to read the whole thing. It is also important to see how implementation goes. But herein a few preliminary remarks.
The basic outline is clear enough from press reports and the leak of an earlier draft. Humanitarian corridors are to opened to besieged areas like Aleppo. Starting this evening, which happens to mark the beginning of Eid al Adha, the Russians and Americans will try to restore the cessation of hostilities, after a weekend of ferocious attacks on opposition forces. Provided humanitarian deliveries go well, seven days later Moscow and Washington will begin jointly to target Fateh al Sham, the successor organization to Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al Nusra, which has been largely embedded until now with non-extremist fighters. The idea is to give the non-extremists time and incentive to separate and to prevent the Russian/Syrian government/Iranian coalition from targeting the non-extremists. The war against the Islamic State, which keeps itself separate from the opposition, will also continue.
Secretary of State Kerry describes the agreement as a step in the direction of a political transition. I don’t hear Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov saying that. This agreement in no way threatens the regime, which gets a respite from the fighting during which it will no doubt try to resupply and consolidate its fragmented forces. It is unclear what, if any, restraints on its air and ground attacks are included in the agreement, though it is presumably expected to participate in the ceasefire by not attacking opposition forces that observe it. If there is to be a political transition in accordance with the June 2012 UN communique, it won’t start until the military balance changes significantly from its current tilt in favor of the Syrian government.
The Syrian opposition people I’ve talked to welcome the agreement, more out of resignation than enthusiasm. They doubt the regime will abide by it and know that Fateh al Sham makes important contributions to the resistance to Bashar al Assad. But they also know that the non-extremist opposition is exhausted and needs a break, even if only a temporary one, from a year of indiscriminate but successful Russian/Syrian government/Iranian assault. The US and its Gulf allies could turn off the opposition’s spigot of money and supplies. Better, the opposition figures, to go along with a pause in the fighting and make the best of it. Maybe something like a relatively stable patchwork of opposition-controlled safe areas will emerge.
But the cessation of hostilities isn’t likely to last. Without third party observers, the same frictions that wrecked the last cessation of hostilities are likely to wreck this one as well. The Americans of course know that but hope to do enough damage to Fateh al Sham in the meanwhile to prevent it from being able to launch attacks against Americans, which the Administration is convinced is the extremists’ intention. They do not believe the formal separation of Fateh al Sham from Al Qaeda has made the jihadis any less dangerous to Americans.
Whatever they say about not being wedded to him, the Russians and Iranians have demonstrated unequivocally that they care more to keep Bashar al Assad in power than the Americans care to see him removed. I hope Secretary Kerry at least told them that success in that endeavor means they are responsible for rebuilding Syria, the bill for which will be several hundred billion dollars.
From my point of view, the agreement is a second best and likely temporary solution. President Obama is simply not willing to do more to help the Syrian opposition prevail in forcing a political transition. Secretary Kerry was left with no Plan B. He had no alternative to a negotiated agreement, which means he was over a barrel. The non-extremist opposition is in the same unfortunate state. Faute de mieux, they will go along to get along, hoping that it leads to where they would like to go.
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Dear Mr. President,
Secretary Kerry last week failed to reach agreement with Moscow on coordinating attacks on extremists in Syria. Even his effort to reinstate the cessation of hostilities and ensure humanitarian access has proven a bridge too far for the Russians.
Syria is now in the sixth year of a war that has killed half a million people, displaced more than half the population, threatens the stability of friends throughout the Middle East, and has damaging repercussions among our European allies. Your remaining months in office provide an opportunity to steer this horrendous conflict towards a peaceful settlement. If you refuse to do more than you have done so far, it will discredit your efforts to reduce and reshape US commitments in the Middle East and haunt your legacy.
Your policy has been a judicious one. You have tried hard to keep the US focus on the most serious threats to our national security: the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. You have avoided military clashes with the pro-Assad coalition, including the Russian air force, the Syrian armed forces, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as its surrogates. You have provided military assistance to non-extremists prepared to fight the Islamic State as well as billions in humanitarian and other assistance to civilians.
The results in the past year have been good when measured narrowly against your objective: to block the main threats to the US. The Islamic State is losing territory, especially along the northern border with Turkey. The successful operation with Turkish support took Jarablus and blocked an unwarranted move there by the Kurds. This will cut off ISIS’s vital supply lines and reduce its revenue. An attack on ISIS’s capital Raqqa next year is a real possibility. The Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria has disowned its loyalty to Al Qaeda central, though it maintains goals that are anathema to US interests. We are currently talking with the Russians about jointly targeting what is now call Jabhat Fateh al Sham (JFS).
Your judicious approach has however had unintended consequences. Fully backed by Russia and Iran, Assad is gaining ground. Attacks on JFS, should the talks with Moscow eventually prove successful, will give him an opportunity to gain more. Over a million civilians are besieged. Few new refugees are escaping. Talks on a 48-hour humanitarian truce for Aleppo have bogged down. The stalwart rebels of Daraya have surrendered, after a four-year siege. It is clear the Syrian regime is again using chemical weapons. The Assad forces and their allies are killing the non-extremists America supports, driving others to make common cause with extremists. There is declining hope for a political transition to a non-Islamist, democratic regime that will preserve Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The US should not abandon that goal. Here are three things you can do in the next few months that will demonstrate American will and reignite diplomatic efforts in favor of a negotiated political solution to the Syria conflict that meets US requirements:
- Support legislation in Congress that imposes sanctions on those responsible for harm to civilians.
The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2016 would levy financial, trade, travel and arms sanctions on those who are responsible for human rights abuses and those who facilitate them. While its practical impact might be limited, because few of the perpetrators are likely to come within US jurisdiction, it would send an important signal and could raise doubts in the Syrian security forces about carrying out illegal orders to harm civilians. We should invite the EU to join us in imposing sanctions.
2. Ground the Syrian air force, both fixed wing and helicopters.
John Kerry is still trying to get the Russians to do this, as the quid pro quo for cooperation with the US in attacking the former Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. If he fails, you should tell the Russians and Syrians that any Syrian aircraft responsible for bombing civilians will be subject to attack by the US. Few Syrian pilots will be prepared to take the risk. If they do, even shooting down one or two such aircraft, or striking them on land, would likely ground the entire fleet.
3. Get Hizbollah out of Syria.
Lebanese Hizbollah has provided vital ground forces to Assad, especially in the fighting around Aleppo and along the Lebanese border. This Shia militia also contributes to Islamic State and Al Qaeda recruitment of Sunnis, as its activities illustrate all too clearly that the fight in Syria now has a sectarian dimension. Hizbollah is a terrorist organization that has killed Americans and will likely do so again in the future. If the US is fighting terrorism in Syria, it should not be immune. We should tell the Russians and Iranians that we want Hizbollah out of Syria or it will be subject to US attacks, like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.
You could also consider a no-fly zone over parts of Syria, to protect opposition-held enclaves in the north and south for example. But that would create target-rich areas that have to be continuously defended, both on the ground and in the air. The options above are less burdensome and would signal more unequivocally US determination to protect Syrian civilians wherever they live.
These moves would also improve the odds for a diplomatic solution. Once Assad is deprived of the air and ground assets that have enabled him to survive and even given him an edge in the fighting, the conditions will ripen for a negotiated outcome early in Hillary Clinton’s presidency. That would be a worthy legacy.
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Middle East and Europe: impact and prospects
I had the privilege this morning of speaking today by Skype to the Ambassadors’ Council convened at the Macedonian Foreign Ministry in Skopje. These are the notes I used:
- First let me thank the organizers, in particular Ambassador Abdulkadar Memedi and Edvard Mitevski, for this opportunity. It is rare indeed that I get to talk about my two favorite parts of the world: Europe and the Middle East.
- My focus today will be on the latter, as I am confident that Europeans—a category that in my way of thinking includes all the citizens of Macedonia—know more than I do about the impact of the refugee crisis on your part of the world.
- But big as it looms for you, the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from the Greater Middle East is a fraction of a much larger problem.
- There are 4.8 million refugees from Syria in neighboring countries, the largest number in Turkey but millions also in Lebanon and Jordan. Upwards of 8.7 million will be displaced within Syrian by the end of the year. 13.5 million are said to be in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria.
- The number of refugees leaving Syria has leveled off, but asylum applications in Europe are well above 1 million and still rising, albeit at a declining rate.
- The U.S. is committed to taking only 10,000 Syrians. I don’t anticipate that our politics will allow a lot more anytime soon, though eventually we will have many more arrive through family reunification and other modalities.
- The 1.5 million people you saw flow through Macedonia over the past year or so were the relatively fortunate Syrians, not the most unfortunate. Moreover, most who have arrived in Europe are male. If their asylum applications are successful, that will lead to large numbers of family members eventually joining them.
- The vital question for me is this: what are the prospects for ending the wars that are tearing Syria to shreds? And what are the prospects for other potential sources of migrants and refugees from Iraq, from Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya?
- More than five years after Bashar al Assad’s attempted violent repression of the nonviolent demonstrations in his country, prospects for peace still look dim.
- The Russians and Iranians, whose support to Assad has been vital to his survival, show no signs of letting up and have in fact doubled down on their bad bet.
- The Iranians have committed Lebanese Hizbollah, Iraqi Shia militias and their own Revolutionary Guard to the fight, not to mention Afghan and other Shia fighters.
- The Russians have not only redoubled their air attacks but also added flights from Iran, now suspended, as well as cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea. Moscow has now killed more civilians, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, than the Islamic State.
- The Americans continue to refuse to fight Assad, Iran, or Russia. President Obama lacks both legal authorization and popular support to attack them. Americans want him to focus exclusively on the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, which is what he is doing, apart from assistance to some Syrian opposition forces willing to join in the fight against extremists.
- Donald Trump would certainly follow the same policy, perhaps redoubling efforts against the Islamic State and looking for opportunities for cooperation with Russia. Hillary Clinton has pledged to look at other options like protected areas or no-fly zones, but it is not clear that she will pursue them.
- The space for moderates in Syria is shrinking. Violence always polarizes, as you know only too well. In addition, the Americans are restraining the forces that they have equipped and trained from attacking the Syrian army. They want moderates focused exclusively on fighting the Islamic State.
- This morning, Turkish forces entered Syria at Jarablus on the Euphrates, in support of Arab and Turkman forces aiming to deprive the Islamic State of its last border point and block the expansion of Kurdish forces from taking the last stretch of the Turkish/Syrian border they don’t control.
- When will it all end? I don’t know, but I think it likely to end at best not in a clear victory of one side or another but rather in a fragmented and semi-stable division of areas of control.
- The Syrian government will control most of what Assad refers to as “useful Syria”: the western coast and the central axis from Damascus through Homs and Hama, with Idlib and Aleppo still in doubt.
- The opposition will likely control part of the south along the Jordanian border as well as a wedge of the north, including a piece of the border with Turkey stretching from Azaz to Jarablus.
- The Kurds will control the rest of the border with Turkey. Raqqa and Deir Azzour are still up for grabs, with the likely outcome opposition in the former and government in the latter.
- That is the likely best. Will that end the refugee problem?
- I think not. Nothing about this fragmented outcome is likely to make it attractive for Syrians to return home. Security will remain a serious problem and little funding will be available for reconstruction. Syria will remain unstable for years to come.
- What about other parts of the Greater Middle East?
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Shifting currents in Syria
As UN envoy Stefano de Mistura tries to reconvene Syria peace talks next week, there are important developments that could impact his prospects.
The Syrian government has continued to block aid to opposition-controlled areas, causing Stefano to abruptly curtail humanitarian task force deliberations last week. Moscow last week flew bombers from Iran, an innovation now reportedly suspended. The Russians also launched cruise missiles allegedly targeted against Jabhat al Nusra (which is generally embedded with more moderate insurgents) from the Black Sea. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Russia has now killed more civilians in Syria than ISIS, though it started years earlier. Moscow has shown no visible inclination to limit Syrian government strikes on civilian areas, which it targets on a daily basis.
At the same time, the situation in northern Syria has evolved in a direction favorable to the US. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are mostly Kurdish fighters, have retaken Manbij from the Islamic State and are heading for Jarablus on the border where the Euphrates crosses from Turkey into Syria. Arab SDF forces are said to be preparing the assault from inside Turkey, which wants to block the Kurds from taking over the entire northern border of Syria. At the same time, farther east in Hasakeh, US-supported Kurdish forces are fighting with the Syrian army, with which they cooperated in taking the town a year ago and had maintained a truce since. The Syrian air force last week came close to clashing with US aircraft sent to protect the Kurds, who are reportedly trying to oust President Assad’s forces entirely from their northeastern “canton.”
If successful, these operations in northern Syria will cut off the Islamic State from its supply lines in Turkey and possibly end the ambiguous relationship of the Kurdish PYD forces with the Syrian government, though the Syrian opposition is unlikely to accept the PYD into its fold, not least because of Turkey’s opposition. The possibility of an attack on the Islamic State capital at Raqqa is starting to loom on the horizon, perhaps even before an effort to liberate Mosul in Iraq.
Still John Kerry is saddled as the Obama Administration draws to a close with the unenviable task of conducting Middle East diplomacy without any serious threat of coercion. The President, supported by most Americans, simply doesn’t want to use American force against anything but the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. This means not targeting the Syrian government and Hizbollah forces, even when they attack civilians. The Iranians and Russians in Syria are following his lead in a way: they are using force on the issues they care about and ignoring diplomacy. No matter what they say about not being wedded to Assad, the Russians and Iranians are mostly fighting the Syrian opposition in an effort to prevent regime change, with few relatively few attacks on on the Islamic State.
This free for all isn’t likely to work well for John Kerry in his efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Syria. The proposition he has been flogging is this: US cooperation with Russia in targeting the Islamic State and Al Qaeda (presumably including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the allegedly unaffiliated successor to Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al Nusra) provided Russia ends attacks on the non-extremist Syrian opposition and convinces President Assad to ground his air force. The relative success of US-allied forces in northern Syria may strengthen Kerry’s hand, but there is no sign yet of any willingness on Russia’s part to meet its side of the bargain.
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Who founded ISIS?
Donald Trump says it was President Obama, along with Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State:
This is bullshit (as is his claim to have opposed the invasion of Iraq before it occurred).
But it is well worth recalling some of the history of the Islamic State, whose origins are to be found in Al Qaeda in Iraq, founded to resist the American forces there after the 2003 invasion (though there was a precursor organization under Saddam Hussein led by the real founder of the Islamic State: Abu Musab al Zarqawi). I would not call President Bush the founder of ISIS, but it is nevertheless fair to say that without the American invasion it is difficult to picture how the group would have gained the traction it did. That said, by the time of the American withdrawal in 2011, the Islamic State in Iraq had been largely defeated.
Trump will no doubt claim that it was the American withdrawal, conducted under President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, that enabled the ISIS revival. But that simplistic and fallacious allegation, post hoc ergo propter hoc, ignores several wrinkles:
- The agreement for the 2011 American withdrawal was negotiated and signed under President Bush, prior to President Obama taking office.
- The revival of the Islamic State in Iraq was due primarily to the exclusionary governing methods of then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who tried to repress peaceful Sunni demonstrations with force.
- The even more repressive methods of Syrian President Bashar al Assad from 2011 on created chaotic conditions that enabled the Islamic State to expand into Syria.
If you want to distribute blame, I’d put it more or less in this order: Maliki>Assad>Bush>Obama. Obama’s culpability is for failure to do as much as he should have to limit Assad’s depredations against Syria’s population.
I don’t expect Trump to accept any of this. He is obviously thrilled with the reaction of his supporters to his blaming Obama and Clinton. That will be enough for him to continue repeating his allegations.
What he won’t mention is the vigorous effort of the current administration for the past two years to kill Islamic State cadres and deny it control over territory, relying on local forces and without the loss of more than a handful of Americans. I am among the first to criticize the Obama Administration for taking an overly militarized approach to defeating ISIS. But give credit where it is due. ISIS has lost thousands of fighters, about 50% of its territory in Iraq and more than a quarter of its territory in Syria over the past year. It has also lost ground in Libya, where its capital at Sirte has reportedly fallen. Obama’s military effort against the Islamic State is a strikingly successful one.
So too is the effort to prevent Islamic State fighters from entering the US. The recent ISIS attacks (San Bernardino, Tampa) have been ISIS-inspired rather than directed. Only a handful of immigrants have been arrested for affiliation with the Islamic State, which suggests that the screening procedures are working remarkably well.
The truth is that the Islamic State does not, as Trump claims, “honor” President Obama. But it likes Trump and his ilk a lot. His effort to exclude Muslims from the US feeds the ISIS propaganda machine, which claims Muslims will never get a fair shake in the West. Trump did not found the Islamic State any more than Obama did, but he is aiding and abetting its efforts. I trust Americans will know what to do about that at the polls.
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Hezbollah in Syria
The Washington Post piece I published July 28 on forcing Hezbollah out of the fight in Syria either diplomatically or, if that fails, militarily has gotten mixed reactions, at best. Here are some criticisms I care to reply to:
- Many retweeted the false allegation that I had advocated bombing Lebanon (even that I had advocated bombing civilians in Lebanon). The op/ed was clearly directed at Hezbollah’s presence inside Syria and advocated getting its forces to withdraw to Lebanon. At no time did I advocate bombing civilians either in Lebanon or in Syria. This false allegation was clearly intended to obscure the main point I had made: that Hezbollah is itself a terrorist group that should not be in Syria, even if you think it has an appropriate role in Lebanon.
- Quite a few interpreted my piece as pro-Israel, some explicitly referring to my being Jewish. This of course ignores the fact that Israelis might not appreciate the Hezbollah retaliation I mentioned as likely. It also helps anti-Semites to put people in predetermined boxes, making further thinking or discussion unnecessary. The fact is Hezbollah would represent more of a threat to Israel if it were not fighting against Syrians. It will emerge from Syria significantly diminished in manpower and political traction in Lebanon, though with enhanced military experience.
- Some thought my proposition would be not be consistent with international law. This is a more worthy critique. International law does permit self-defense, but it has been some time since Hezbollah killed Americans, so far as I know. There is, however, no international statute of limitations, in particular on mass murder. Is the US not entitled to respond to the murder of 241 Marines because more than 30 years have passed? The US killed Osama bin Laden more than 9 years after 9/11. How many more years before we forget about mass murder? Hezbollah has sworn enmity to the US. Are we not permitted to take them seriously and try to prevent further harm to our citizens?
- Others alleged that my proposal would spread the Syrian war. This too is worthy of consideration, but I fail to see how my proposal would necessarily make things worse. If Assad and his allies continue to make progress and in particular if opposition-held neighborhoods in Aleppo were to fall, more Syrians would flee to neighboring countries, not fewer. It is certainly arguable that some significant portion of the 7 million and more Syrians who have already become refugees are attributable to Hezbollah. How many more will Hezbollah cause to flee if it is not prevented from assaulting civilians?
- Some asked whether we shouldn’t be happy Hezbollah is fighting the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. While Hezbollah does fight jihadis associated with both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, its presence in Syria is also an important recruiting tool for Sunni extremists, who are delighted to have the civilian population Hezbollah attacks mobilized to take up arms in self-defense. Killing civilians and calling them terrorists is not a viable strategy to counter violent extremism.
Assad helped to create the Islamic State in Iraq after the 2003 American invasion, when he funneled jihadi fighters into Iraq to resist the Americans. Early in the 2011 revolution, he also released extremists from Syrian prisons, in an effort to ensure that the only choice Syrians and the international community would have was between him and the terrorists. He is close to fulfilling that prophecy. The longer the war goes on, the less space there is for non-extremists. Allowing Hezbollah to continue to fight in Syria helps not only Assad but also the most extreme elements opposing him. It also postpones any political settlement, which is what is really needed.
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