Only a few years ago the US was confident it had left behind combat operations in the Middle East. It’s back, albeit reluctantly. The US has bolstered its training mission in Iraq and begun air support missions. To the west, in Syria, the US failed to build a rebel force to its satisfaction, despite a half billion dollars spent. The US is also flying air support missions with occasional help from allies.
Policymakers are pondering deeper commitments. The logic may stem more from emotion and Cold War thinking than from carefully assessing who, if anyone, in Iraq or Syria can advance our security and humanitarian goals, and what policies will entangle us with Shia-Sunni conflicts, separatist movements, warlords, and tribal chieftains for years to come.
Why?
ISIL’s offensive in June of 2014 took control of Mosul rather effortlessly, and imposed a shockingly brutal government. Americans, like many people, were horrified. There was also the sense that the American ouster of Saddam Hussein and dissolution of the Sunni-led army has helped create the insurgency and influx of foreign fighters that have become ISIL.
Americans feel the need to have influence in the world and shape events. The need is based on an impure amalgam of idealistic hopes, commercial objectives, and ill-defined national security goals. The need was relatively weak prior to the close of World War Two, when an intoxicating victory lured the country into globalism. The nation’s founders would be disappointed, if not aghast.
In a redux of the Cold War, the US looks upon Russia’s actions in Syria and almost reflexively feels the need to respond. Failure to do so, defense bureaus insist, will imperil our allies, standing, and security. Syrian rebels report an influx of American weaponry in recent weeks.
Iraqi forces
There are four ground forces in Iraq that are, roughly speaking, on our side in the ISIL war. Each has flaws, each portends entanglements.
The Iraqi army is the largest, best equipped, and best trained force, however it is also the least effective. Built from scratch after Saddam’s military was disbanded in 2003, the new army has relatively inexperienced officers and NCOs, whose political connections usually exceed their professional qualifications.
Shia militias have been valuable assets in the drives against ISIL around Tikrit and Ramadi. They are less well trained and equipped than the regular army but have IRGC advisers and better cohesion. Many of them are at least as loyal to local commanders and advisers as they are to the Baghdad government. They are openly contemptuous of regular army soldiers they serve near.
The Kurdish peshmerga have fought from mountain redoubts for centuries. They are effective guerrilla forces, hitting hard and retreating skillfully. They are less effective when called upon to fight as conventional forces in large formations with reliable logistics behind them. The Kurds are divided along tribal and political lines and have not coalesced into a conventional force. The political system above them is presently in crisis, tottering between autocracy and tribal consensus.
The Kurds have nonetheless been successful in pushing ISIL back from many of the gains it made last year. In so doing, however, they have expelled or intimidated Arab settlers that Saddam placed in the north to strengthen his control over the oil fields. Kurdish offensives into Arab regions to the south, though aimed at defeating ISIL, will meet with local opposition.
Sunni tribal militias formed an important part of the insurgency against US and coalition forces. Later, they constituted the Sunni Awakening which expelled al Qaeda from Iraq, though only temporarily. Some tribal levies are fighting ISIL, others fight alongside ISIL, seeing it as harsh but nonetheless preferable to Shia governance. Most Sunni tribes are on the sidelines, waiting for the moment to negotiate for or declare autonomy from Baghdad. They will maneuver to win Washington’s support in this.
Syrian forces
Rebel factions in Syria are so numerous and antagonistic as to make Iraq appear homogeneous. Most have coalesced, for the time being and only on paper, into a handful of groupings.
In the early days of the war, the Free Syrian Army seemed destined to unseat Assad and take control of Syria. It had a reputable political body behind it and powerful foreign backing. Its armed forces were attracting deserters from the Assad army. Today, however, the FSA has itself suffered from desertions. Its remaining forces hold only a few areas.
The Islamic Front, an umbrella organization with a large number of troops, holds large swathes of the country. It is reliably backed by several foreign powers, though their unity is likely transitory. With peace or ceasefire, commanders will bicker and fight – as will their foreign backers. (Putin and Assad may be banking on this.)
Among the most effective bands is the al Nusrah Front, the al Qaeda affiliate whose Salafi fighters exhibit great cohesion and effectiveness. Sunni states and Israel feel that al Nusrah can be moderated and reconstituted into a reliable enemy of ISIL. It is more likely that al Nusrah presents itself in that light as a way to win support for the short term, after which its zeal and brutality will return.
Syria’s north has a Kurdish population which has formed its own self-defense forces. They have repelled ISIL from Kobane and are moving on Raqqa, the ISIL capital. They have impressed western capitals but dismayed Ankara, as they are aligned with the more radical Turkish Kurds, and represent not only the fragmentation of Syria but also that of Turkey.
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Government has broken down in eastern Syria and western Iraq, replaced by a slew of tribal chieftains, Islamist visionaries, and foreign-backed warlords. Vexed policymakers in Washington see some as attractive partners in the ISIL war and in reestablishing stability in the region. This, however, is chimeric and dangerous.
Eastern Syria and western Iraq are too badly fragmented, antagonistic, and potentially hostile to offer Washington any reliable partner or partners in its security and humanitarian efforts. Commitment beyond training missions, air support, and refugee aid will only complicate our already tenuous and volatile positions in the region and push us deeper into the rivers of Mesopotamia for years if not decades to come.
©2015 Brian M Downing