Obama Fights Chaos

The U.S. wants to prevent Syria from following Libya’s example or that of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Washington continues demanding that Assad step down and for an agreed transition to take place.

With only a little more than three weeks remaining until the start of peace negotiations in Syria on Jan. 22, the U.S. is trying to unify the less radical Islamist groups and the remnants of the moderate opposition to Assad. “We wouldn’t rule out the possibility of meeting with the Islamic Front,” affirmed Marie Harf, State Department spokeswoman, alluding to a coalition of seven groups created in November, which have in common their rejection of democracy and imposition of Islamic law.

Washington’s objective, according to Foreign Policy magazine, citing sources from the opposition to Assad in Turkey, is to make the Islamic Front accept the Supreme Military Council, a secular organization whose ranks have been reduced to irrelevance by the Islamists. The U.S. and EU viewed the Supreme Military Council as the better opposition group. Washington had given 189 million euros [about $139 million] in aid to the organization, which did not include weapons or munitions but did include communication and transportation equipment and medicine. Now, the support has been left frozen following the unstoppable advance of the Islamic Front.

The problem is, what can the United States and the Supreme Military Council discuss with the Islamic Front jihadis, for whom only “God is the sovereign” and whose military commander, Zahran Alloush, has promised to “wash the filth … from Greater Syria,” in reference to Alawites like President Assad. The rapprochement is an act of realism. This coalition conquered the Supreme Military Council headquarters at the beginning of the month, and with 45,000 to 60,000 armed men is the largest opposition force, according to the estimations of the pro-Israeli think tank Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The Islamic Front is a better option for the United States than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (known by the acronym ISIS in English), which is affiliated with al-Qaida and is gaining ground in the war. The United States is giving missiles and unmanned aircraft (drones) to the Armed Forces of Iraq to combat ISIS.

Opening of Peace Negotiations

Officially, the position the U.S. will hold at the opening of peace negotiations has not changed. Washington continues demanding that Assad relinquish power and that an agreed transition to democracy take place. It also maintains its outright rejection of Iran playing any part in negotiations.

But in practice, the U.S. is looking at the Syrian civil war in a different manner than just a few months ago. The pressure on the part of Congress that the Obama administration “do something” in that country is fading, as the legislators are concentrating more on the November 2014 elections, which — unless there is a surprise — are going to be centered on domestic issues. And the risk of attacking Syria or of ending up supporting fundamentalist groups is too great. Assad is not a pleasant sort, but for the United States and Israel, his conduct is at least predictable.

The United States, at all costs, wants to prevent Syria from disintegrating into chaos as happened in Libya after the NATO intervention — pushed by France and the United Kingdom more than by the U.S. — or even worse, ending up like Afghanistan during the 1980s, when Washington supported the most fundamentalist guerrillas to fight the Soviet Union.

The problem for the United States, however, is the same as for Afghanistan: its allies. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were responsible for the Afghan fundamentalists calling the shots in the war, and now, according to the prestigious Washington think tank, the Brookings Institution, Kuwait has become one of the principal supports for the Syrian fundamentalists. To that country, add Qatar, which likely has given over 2 billion [euros, $1.47 billion]] to the Syrian opposition. All of those countries are Sunni, and therefore oppose Assad’s government, which is allied with the great Shiite power of the region, Iran.