President Obama insisted – from the outset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 – that it made no sense for the United States to go “all in” because there could be no military solution. No doubt he was mindful that the underlying sectarian conflict that gave rise to it had already bedeviled U.S. efforts, for over a decade, to rebuild Iraq.
But everyone – from congressional Republicans to European allies, from Jewish leaders to Arab leaders – criticized him for showing weakness. They even ridiculed him as the leader of the free world who prefers to “lead from behind.”
Then, when President Putin committed Russia to go all in last September, every one of Obama’s critics hailed Putin for showing strength. They even suggested that he was demonstrating the kind of leadership expected of the leader of the free world.
By contrast, I warned that Putin’s bombing of Syria smacked of the same kind of vaingloriousness that characterized former President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. More to the point, in “Bombing ISIS Smacks of Masturbatory Violence,” November 18, 2015, I explained why Putin’s bombing would prove every bit as feckless as Bush’s invasion.
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Hailing Putin’s bombing as ‘shock and awe … on steroids’ ignores that it took hundreds of thousands of troops invading (not hundreds of jets bombing) for Bush to win his pyrrhic victory in Iraq…
Criticizing Obama for having little to show after bombing [Syria] for over a year ignores that he deems it as unconscionable as it is counterproductive to get off on killing thousands of women and children in a vain attempt to kill a few ISIS combatants…
Staking out safe zones in Syria and Iraq will stem the flow of refugees into Europe. It will also provide a base from which Western ground forces can launch strategic incursions to kill ISIS leaders and enemy combatants, not hapless Syrians unable to flee. Russia … should join forces with the United States and its coalition partners to implement this strategy.
All else is folly.
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Unsurprisingly, Obama’s bombing of Syria had limited effect, especially as ISIS fighters routinely hid in densely populated neighborhoods, using women and children as human shields. Sadly, unlike Obama, Putin does not deem it either unconscionable or counterproductive to get off on killing tens of thousands of women and children.
Only that explains this:
Russian and Syrian government forces appear to have deliberately and systematically targeted hospitals and other medical facilities over the last three months to pave the way for ground forces to advance on northern Aleppo, an examination of airstrikes by Amnesty International has found…
Hospitals in opposition-controlled areas around Aleppo became a primary target for the Russian and Syrian government forces. This eliminated a vital lifeline for the civilians living in those embattled areas, leaving them no choice but to flee.
(Amnesty International, March 3, 2016)
Meanwhile, given reports this week about the “fall of Aleppo,” you’d be forgiven for thinking that, unlike Bush with respect to Iraq, Putin has just cause to declare mission accomplished in Syria. Except that conspicuously absent from far too many of those reports is that rebels still control wide swathes of Syria.
In fact, nothing betrays the military quagmire Putin has gotten Russia into quite like this:
ISIS fighters have recaptured the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, despite coming under heavy bombardment by Russian air strikes as they fought to retake the Unesco World Heritage site.
The militants’ success in seizing Palmyra after being forced out of the city in March underlines the limits air power has against the group and the challenges faced by President Bashar al-Assad and his allies in fighting a multi-sided civil war.
(Financial Times, December 12, 2016)
In other words, Russia is now mired in Syria, engaged in the same kind of military whack-a-mole that has kept the United States mired in Iraq for the past 13 years.
Which is why Obama can be forgiven for saying I told you so. Not least because Putin is parroting today what Obama was saying five years ago.
Russia is firmly convinced that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict and is ready to cooperate with the United States and other Western countries on the crisis settlement, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said on Tuesday.
(Sputnik News, October 11, 2016)
Except that Putin is pressing for a political solution that Obama realized from the outset is a non-starter. After all, the reason members of the opposition took up arms in the first place is that they believe Assad’s brutal crackdown, when the Arab Spring came to Syria, forfeited his right to govern, irredeemably. This, you may recall, is why Obama famously declared, “Assad must go.”
Hence this all too predictable irony: Putin’s mission in Syria now depends on him endorsing Obama’s declaration for Assad to go. After all, pressing Assad to accept a coalition government that would include members of the opposition makes about as much sense as pressing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to sign a peace deal with the United States.
Incidentally, the same principle applies to Russia, Turkey, and Iran meeting in Moscow yesterday to broker a peace deal and “discuss the future of Syria” – as Reuters reported with no hint of irony. After all, this is rather like France, Britain, and Spain meeting in London in 1863, while the American Civil War was still raging, to broker a peace deal and discuss the future of the United States.
But really, it seems the very definition of folly for the foreign powers fighting proxy wars in Syria to be brokering a peace deal. Especially given that they have proven time and again incapable of even brokering a temporary ceasefire — as I duly ridiculed in “Alas, Syrian Ceasefire No. 44 Will Fare No Better,” September 10, 2016.
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