The Real Conspiracy

[David Morris]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/strategy-missile-strikes.html

Are there any grand strategy considerations behind the Obama
administration’s desire to bomb Syria? Yes, though they rest on doubtful
premises.

The increasing importance of al-Qaeda-linked radical Sunni fundamentalist
groups to the civil war in the north of Syria has posed a dilemma for the
Obama administration, which began calling for the ouster of President
Bashar al-Assad in late spring of 2011.

The US now doesn’t want the regime to fall relatively quickly as in Libya,
because the al-Qaeda affiliates have become too powerful and could well
take over Damascus. Highly undesirable. The US does not want that outcome,
and neither do Israel or Saudi Arabia, the two pillars of US policy in the
region.

So US policy is to join with Saudi Arabia and Jordan to encourage a second
front at Deraa with anti-al-Qaeda fighters a la sons of Iraq and limiting
access for heavy weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra at the northern front by
intercepting them in Turkey. Turkey and Qatar are upset with this policy
and both try to subvert it, undisturbed by the al-Qaeda tendencies of their
allies.

So far the Sons of Syria haven’t exactly come together quickly, and this
strategy is likely a multi-year effort. It also has the potential for
provoking a Syria-Jordan War, since Jordan is clearly the base.

The chemical attack in Ghouta seems likely a military response to these
Jordan-trained, Deraa-based guerrillas coming up into Rif Dimashq. The
Obama administration’s plans for a missile strike in response to the
chemical attack is part of the southern, “Sons of Syria” strategy comes
because that strategy cannot succeed if the regime is allowed to use
chemical weapons to level the playing field. The US will therefore threaten
the Baath regime with a rapid Libya-like overthrow, with US air support
given to the rebel cause, if Damascus goes on using chemicals. The US hopes
that the Baath will be afraid of a Libya scenario and will therefore agree
to fight fair, and then the US, Saudi Arabia and Jordan will continue with
the ‘Sons of Syria’ strategy with the further fighting playing out with
conventional weapons.

In the meantime, the radical Sunnis of the north will be left in place but
starved of the resources needed to make further progress against the regime
there. The US strike will not only punish the regime for chemical weapons
use but also opportunistically attempt to degrade some regime capabilities,
presumably especially those useful in the Deraa-Rif Dimashq front.

There are three big problems with the US intervention strategy:

1. There is enormous space for mission creep

2. The premise that the regime can be forced to fight the southern rebels
fairly is not entirely plausible

3. The US-Jordan-Saudi rebel forces are Sunni and could well be radicalized
by their fight with the Alawite army; the idea that people keep the
ideology you pay them to have is simplistic.

As for mission creep, the Baath regime may believe that the threat of
sustained US air intervention is a bluff, and may call that bluff by
continuing to fight the ‘Sons of Syria’ with chem units. The US at that
point would either have to go in hard or go home, and as Les Gelb admitted,
it is impossible in Washington circles to advocate cutting one’s losses in
the face of a failed gambit.

One way the incipient Washington strategy could succeed is if Russia and
Iran can be enlisted in forcing the regime to stop using chemical weapons.
It would not shorten the civil war, but it might avoid a US quagmire. The
signs that President Obama will go back to the UN Security Council are
positive, and might be a step toward this outcome.
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