The coming battle for Raqqa – and the future of Iraq and Syria
Brian M Downing
Iraqi and Kurdish troops are on the outskirts of Mosul, ISIL’s prized holding in Iraq. The battle will be long and costly and will entail a slew of political complications involving various foreign powers, especially the US and Russia. The complications will continue, and probably worsen, after the battle is over.
Attention is turning to ISIL’s capital in Syria, Raqqa, which lies about 300 miles to the west of Mosul. Without those two cities, ISIL will hold only a few indefensible towns and vast but barren lands in between them. The once seemingly invincible shock troops of a new order will be forced underground, where they can continue bombing campaigns but never cause capitals to tremble.
The fight for Raqqa is expected to begin in coming weeks, and several armies and states are positioning themselves to play important roles. The victors in the ISIL war will win prestige and position themselves to reshape Syria and Iraq.
The United States
For the better part of a year the US has been training and supplying the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Though an umbrella force comprising Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and other peoples, the SDF appear to have sufficient unity to besiege and take Raqqa. At least they once did.
In recent weeks, however, as Turkey intervened in Kurdish parts of Syria – a move supported by or acquiesced to by Washington – Kurdish troops have become wary of their chief benefactor.
The battle for Raqqa will be complicated by other forces that will soon be driving on the city.
Turkey
The battle for Mosul has been complicated by Turkish troops training Iraqi Kurds and supporting them with artillery fire. Ankara’s aim there is to support Kurdish autonomy; its aim in the Raqqa campaign is to prevent or at least limit parallel ambitions among Syrian Kurds.
Much of the world now looks upon the Kurds as a valiant people who turned the tide in the ISIL War, in both Iraq and Syria. Their aspirations for independence, choked off after World War One, are enjoying renewed consideration. Turkish troops will see that the role of Kurdish forces in the war does not further enhance their prestige and support.
Turkey will also seek to detach Arab fighters from the SDF and help them establish a statelet along the Turkish border. Turkey has already established, in conjunction with Free Syrian Army, one such statelet to the northwest along the Euphrates. These statelets will act as buffers in the Kurdish region and discourage coalescence into a contiguous region that could raise itself to statehood and encourage Turkey’s Kurds.
Russia
Its airfields and naval facilities having been expanded, Russia is aiming to increase its influence in the Middle East. It is presently engaged in expelling rebels from Idlib and Aleppo, but it will try to play an important role at Raqqa.
Syrian forces, with Russian air support, retook Palmyra from ISIL last spring, and will be tempted to drive the 150 miles to strike Raqqa from the south, as the SDF and others do the same from the north.
Russia will be able to lay claim to a substantial role in the ISIL War and attempt to rehabilitate its image so badly damaged by the air campaign on Aleppo. Russia may also insert itself into the process of forming statelets along the Turkish border. On the issues of democracy and human rights, Ankara may find more common ground with Moscow than with Washington.
Saudi Arabia
Riyadh has two main interests: weakening Iranian-Shia power and strengthening that of the Sunnis. The Saudis will support, chiefly with money and weapons, the miscellany of rebel groups approaching Raqqa from the north. The Syrian-Iranian effort to reconquer lost lands must be blunted.
The Saudis also want Sunni statelets built in northern and eastern Syria to guard against a Shia resurgence. More ambitiously, the Saudis will want to coalesce Sunni fighters into a beholden armed force that will serve Riyadh’s interests in what was once Syria and western Iraq. They will be important additions to beholden armies in Egypt and Pakistan, and strengthen Riyadh’s internal security and influence in the Middle East.
Copyright 2016 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.