Divisions Could Weaken US Led Coalition in Iraq and Syria
SEPTEMBER 29, 2014 | 1439 Print Text
Size
Summary
Over the past week, the U.S.-led
coalition carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State positions
in Iraq and Syria has expanded to include several new members. This has enhanced
its overall combat power and spread the burden more equitably. The British
parliament voted Sept. 26 to join the group and has already commenced airstrikes over Iraq. Denmark and Belgium also
decided to participate in direct combat operations. These new partners join two
European peers, France and the Netherlands, as well as Australia. Notably,
these six countries have chosen to restrict their combat roles to Iraq. This
contrasts with the role of the United States' five Arab partners — Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — which have been
carrying out airstrikes with the United States in Syria since operations expanded
there Sept. 23.
This odd division of labor does not
operate in the interest of efficiency but is instead an artifact of the
complicated and juxtaposed reality on the ground and in the political arena.
The battleground against the Islamic State is ostensibly divided between the
sovereign states of Iraq and Syria. In reality, however, it is a single space
spread over what has become an imaginary border. The divided coalition reflects
the members' divergent political views on how to manage the respective situations
of Iraq and Syria. Ultimately, the arrangement artificially separates what
should be treated as a single battlefield and a single enemy. This weakens the
coalition, confuses desired outcomes and often limits operations to what will
appease all members.
Analysis
The coalition's division of the
battle space into two parts has already led to differences in target selection.
Since earlier limited U.S. operations in Iraq expanded into Syria, the United
States and Arab coalition members have focused on critical infrastructure in
Syria that supports Islamic State operations in Syria and Iraq. This has
included command centers, finance operations, supply depots and, most recently,
oil refineries. The coalition's strategy in Syria has been to degrade the Islamic State's military capabilities through
destruction or disruption of the critical assets that support it.
The strategy in Iraq, however, has been
quite different. There, the focus of air campaigns has been to buttress ground
operations. This has translated into close air support for Kurdish peshmerga
and national government forces, as well as strikes aimed at destroying Islamic
State military supplies, vehicles and heavy weapons used in operations against
those forces. This divergence stems in part from the different tactical
situations in each country: In Iraq the coalition is operating in direct
coordination with local forces, whereas in Syria efforts to facilitate
anti-Islamic State ground attacks are in the early stages, with only the first
steps having been taken to train Syrian anti-regime rebels in Saudi Arabia.
But these disparate tactical
realities are only part of the picture. The primary differences between these
operations are explained by the imperatives of the partners operating in Iraq
and in Syria. The United States' Sunni Arab partners have an interest in
participating in the operations against the Islamic State in Syria. Degrading
the Islamic State's capabilities there takes pressure off of anti-regime rebels
currently fighting Damascus and Islamic State forces simultaneously. The United
States' reliance on support from these Sunni Arab countries, however, presents
the risk that the core mission in Syria will be stretched in two different
directions. The United States aims to cripple the Islamic State without
directly targeting Syrian President Bashar al Assad. The Sunni Arab states,
though, want to dislodge al Assad's Iran-friendly regime and weaken the
position of Lebanese-based Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is assisting
the Syrian government.
Risks to Cohesion
For their part, Australia and
the coalition's European members have a different set of interests from
their Arab partners. Because a large number of Islamic State foreign fighters originated
in Europe, these governments fear that the militants could at some point return
home and threaten national security. The Islamic State has also taken European hostages and continues to
be a source for radicalization inside Europe. This means that these states have
compelling reasons for carrying out strikes against the Islamic State
regardless of its area of operation. All six of these powers, however, have
chosen not to operate over Syria without a clear mandate from the United
Nations. In European countries especially, military intervention is a touchy
political subject; approval for any type of direct involvement typically
requires the support of parliament, putting tight electoral constraints on such
operations. These limits are less severe in the case of Iraq, where the
coalition is delivering assistance to a host nation requesting help rather than
conducting a military intervention in a country without coordinating with its
government.
The division of the coalition into
two separate areas does not necessarily limit its military capabilities, but it
does pose serious risks to its cohesion and, by extension, its ability to
sustain effective operations over Syria in particular. Because of the Arab
states' direct interest in the outcome of the Syrian civil war, they may try to
push the United States toward extending air operations to targets of the al
Assad regime. This is something the United States is unwilling to do, in part
because it would carry a much higher logistical cost. But if such a
disagreement were to threaten operations over Syria, the Europeans' reluctance
to extend their own activities into Syria would seriously limit the coalition.
The United States would also risk being perceived as the sole actor on the
Syrian side of the battle, rather than part of an international coalition, and
this could result in significant blowback on the ground. At the same time,
disagreements on the scope of operations in Syria could also constrain the
effectiveness of strikes by limiting the target set to the bare minimum to
which all parties can agree.
As it stands, the U.S.-led coalition
is fragile. When something is this delicate and complicated, it is hard to take
the decisive action required to degrade and contain a dynamic opponent such as
the Islamic State.
No comments:
Post a Comment