Yesterday the US Senate approved President Barack Obama's bill to arm
and train 'moderate' insurgents in Syria on the pretext of fighting the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by 78 votes to 22. As the
President is unlikely to veto a bill he himself introduced it will now
pass into law and that arming and training will begin shortly.
Although I remain very opposed to this I have to say that I really
consider it non-news. As it seems unlikely the US will able to find any
insurgents in Syria who don't have ties with terrorist groups such as
ISIL, Al Qaeda or the Islamic Front (IF) and want to build a secular
democracy rather then simply oust a majority Shia government they will
probably end up strengthing extremist groups who will simply side with
ISIL. That will simply have the effect of prolonging the conflict
because the insurgent groups have already demonstrated that they cannot
win and will only be weakened by US air-power. If the US does stick to
its fantasy of resurrecting the Free Syrian Army (FSA) then basic
training for the US military takes around 6 months. If the US is going
to cut that time in half to 3 months it's still going to be January 2015
before the FSA are in a position to start their long and arduous
advance north to where ISIL are located.
Due to the underhand and downright illegal way that the US has conducted
itself thus far in its undeclared war against Syria there is a strong
suspicion that the US trained insurgents will have no intention of
fighting ISIL and will instead move to overthrow the Syrian government.
The US should be deeply afraid of this because as Libya showed it is
when the government is overthrown that the infighting begins and the
descent into chaos and carnage really starts to speed up. The Syrian
government is obviously going to be opposed to being overthrown so is
likely now to start concentrating its efforts on eradicating the FSA
from its final pockets of resistance in the suburbs of Homs and the
capital Damascus. As a result when the US backed insurgents are ready to
be deployed there will be nowhere to deploy them to leaving the US with
little more then 3000 fighters to try and take on ISIL and all the
other insurgent groups in Syria.
So as far as I'm concerned this element of Obama's strategy is just a
waste of time, money, effort and lives. What I did find particularly
nasty though was the way that rather then submitting a bill on this
strategy to be discussed and voted on in detail Obama instead tacked it
onto a federal government spending bill. That left Congress a choice
between approving the bill or forcing another unpopular shutdown of the
federal government right before the mid-term election. That is probably
the most forceful thing a President can do to shut down dissent or even
simple political discourse over a policy that he himself cannot justify.
Aside from the internal politics the US military really stepped up the
intensity of their operations against ISIL. Up until now the US has only
engaged in small, pin-prick strikes that have destroyed an
anti-aircraft gun here and an Humvee there. This strategy has been
described as inoculating ISIL against attack making them stronger by
allowing them to adjust to operating whilst under aeriel attack.
On Wednesday (17/9/14) the US stepped things up a gear by striking an
ISIL ammunition store south-east of Baghdad. This single strike
destroyed a large amount of ammunition that ISIL had been hoping to use
to repel the Iraqi army's attempts to liberate Ramadi and Fallujah. On
Thursday (18/9/14) the US carried out a single air-strike against an
ISIL base near south-east of Mosul. This strike destroyed an armed
"technical" truck and two buildings used to house ISIL fighters. It is
being reported that in excess of 300 ISIL fighters were killed in this
strike. That is 300 volunteers that now won't be able to pick up a rifle
and try and kill members of the Kurdish Peshmerga if and when they move
in to liberate Mosul.
Sadly rather then being the result of the US suddenly realising what is
required to defeat ISIL this intensification seems to have occurred in
response to increasing pressure from the other 39 nations in the
coalition. Today France carried out it's first air-strike against ISIL.
This involved an undisclosed number of Rafale attack aircraft flying
from their base in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to north-eastern Iraq
which is a distance of around 1,500km (900miles) each way. Their target
was an ISIL logistics depot containing fuel, ammunition and other
supplies. It was completely destroyed in the attack.
Obviously if France, Australia and the UK were to continue carrying out
strikes like this while the US insists on refusing to allow them to
operate from bases within Iraq and itself sticking to small, pin-prick
strikes it would really highlight just how ineffective and borderline
reckless Obama's strategy actually is.
(Originally Posted) 16:20 on 19/9/14 (UK date).
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