Why Is the United States Now Considering Arming Syrian Rebels?

The secretary of defense announced it for the first time on Thursday, even if Washington considers it to be “the least bad option” for ending the crisis in Syria.

The decision has not yet been made, but we take the Americans seriously. For the first time, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel acknowledged Thursday that the United States is no longer ruling out the possibility of supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition, which has sought for two years to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. But Hagel did so reluctantly, aware that this is probably the least bad option.

Barack Obama is under pressure to act in the bloody repression carried out by the Assad regime, especially since his intelligence services have acquired the virtual certitude that Assad has used small amounts of chemical weapons against his opponents. But on this issue the American administration — educated by the Iraqi precedent — remains extremely cautious, claiming that additional evidence will be difficult to acquire due to a lack of minimum cooperation by the Syrian regime, which stubbornly denies access to U.N. investigators. Without clear evidence of such recourse to chemical weapons, it is hard to imagine U.S. military intervention on Syrian soil. Similarly, the United States is not the least bit in favor of the establishment of a no-fly zone that would finally provide a sanctuary for rebels. The establishment of such an area first requires the neutralization of Syrian anti-aircraft defense systems. But Washington is not ready to engage in such strikes of destruction on Syrian radars today.

The Urgency To Restore Balance to the Power Struggle on the Ground

That then leaves the option of arming the rebels. The CIA and the Pentagon were already in favor of it last fall, but Obama vetoed the idea. Since then, the non-Islamist rebels have lost ground to jihadists whom the U.S. lists as belonging to a terrorist organization. To make matters worse, the Syrian army has a tendency to not back down, even recovering some positions in the Idlib region and near Homs. There is therefore an urgent need to restore balance to the power struggle on the ground.

Until now, the CIA oversaw some arms shipments to the rebels, particularly by way of Jordan; the United States also provided non-lethal items to Assad’s opponents. The next provision of American anti-aircraft or anti-tank missiles may be coordinated with Britain and France, who are also in favor of arming the rebels. But in Washington, as in Paris, some voices warn against such a decision. Before Congress, James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, recently seemed skeptical of supplying weapons to Assad’s opponents. Like many French military men, the Americans believe it is impossible to guarantee that such weapons would not end up in the “wrong hands,” namely the radical Islamists who have sworn to continue the fight until Assad’s regime has fallen in order to establish a caliphate in Syria and the Levant. But, faced with a regime that can count on the support of Russia and Iran, time pushes for action — or at least the impression of action.