The carnage, political dysfunction and rising tide of Islamic terrorism gripping Syria have created a toxic powder keg unlike anything else on the planet — and that was before last month’s massive earthquake killed thousands and reduced even more of the divided and volatile country to rubble.
For the past decade, the U.S. under three administrations has struggled to find a clear strategy to reverse the downward spiral in Syria, which presents a unique set of military, political and humanitarian problems with major consequences for the region and America’s national security, with 900 American troops still stationed in a country where Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government forces clash with anti-government rebels, Kurdish elements and Islamic State and al Qaeda militants.
Foreign policy analysts generally say that since a civil war following a pro-democracy revolt against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad broke out more than a decade ago, the U.S. in many ways has lacked a holistic approach capable of addressing the violence and widespread poverty. While Mr. Assad has managed to hold on to power in Damascus, the country has been Balkanized, with rebel elements and Kurdish forces effectively controlling large swaths of territory.
Making matters worse, the country is transforming into a full-blown narco-state, with a lucrative illegal drug trade adding more fuel to Syria’s rapid descent and accelerating the widespread human suffering on the ground.
But disengaging entirely isn’t an option, specialists say, as America’s extremely limited military presence and diplomatic engagement in Syria may be the only things keeping the country off an irreversible path toward becoming a Somalia-like failed state and an almost-unprecedented hotbed for Islamic extremists.
“It would collapse into intractable internal chaos,” Charles Lister, Syria program director at the Middle East Institute, said of the nation’s future in the absence of U.S. involvement.
“All of the ingredients already exist for near-nationwide sectarian conflict,” he said in an interview. “On top of that, it would be an absolute dream scenario for ISIS. They would be beyond jubilant [at] the U.S. leaving.”
“Syria is already on track to become the Middle East equivalent of Somalia plus North Korea,” Mr. Lister said. “It is a completely destroyed country, torn apart with many different lines drawn across the map, controlled by a variety of warlords, a corrupt government, terrorist groups … and over top of that would be a narco state that deals in drugs and weapons, and that brutally suppresses its own people and doesn’t allow anything close to freedom of expression. It would be an absolute disaster.”
Since American troops arrived in Syria to battle the once-mighty Islamic State, the U.S. has maintained a military presence inside the country. The roughly 900 American personnel in the country routinely partner with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a network of Kurdish allies, to conduct counterterrorism raids against ISIS targets across Syria. That military presence has itself been a source of controversy in Washington; former President Donald Trump, for instance, twice tried to end America’s military involvement in Syria but was effectively blocked from carrying out a full withdrawal both times.
Today, the small Pentagon footprint is the clearest example of American involvement in Syria, with military leaders arguing that the joint U.S.-SDF counter-ISIS mission is the best defense against a resurgence of the terror network, but with few clear answers about what the long-term mission should be.
The Biden administration argues its policy is much broader. Especially in light of the February earthquake, officials stress America’s humanitarian aid to the suffering Syrian population, as well as efforts to eventually bring about a cease-fire in the war between Mr. Assad’s government forces and rebel outfits.
“Our strategy in Syria is focused on realistic, pragmatic and also ambitious goals. We recognize the status quo in Syria is far from perfect, and that is precisely why we are still so engaged there,” a White National Security Council spokesperson told The Times. “Our military forces remain in Syria to continue the coalition campaign against ISIS and to ensure the group cannot resurge to once again threaten the region, Europe, or Americans. On the diplomatic side, we’ve gone to great lengths to improve humanitarian access throughout the country, to encourage cease-fires to keep violence levels low, and to promote accountability for the Assad regime’s abuses.”
“The above pillars of our Syria policy directly address the challenges noted below: widespread devastation, the lingering threat of ISIS, and a brutal regime that remains in power,” the spokesperson said. “We are leveraging our comparative advantage and influence to make steady progress on our goals, whether that’s at the [United Nations] to promote increased cross-border aid access, in bilateral meetings urging repatriations from [the refugee camp] al Hol, or with coalition partners in the campaign against ISIS.”
But big questions loom over the horizon: Does Mr. Assad stay or go? What will happen to the rebel enclave in Idlib and the thousands of Syrians who fled there to avoid Mr. Assad’s troops? How does the U.S. balance its alliance with Syrian Kurds with anger from NATO ally Turkey which has long battled a Kurdish separatist movement within its own borders? What will outside powers — Iran, Russia, Israel — demand as part of a long-term political settlement?
And there are clear signs among U.S. allies in the region that the hard-line stance against the Assad regime is being seriously questioned.
Saudi Arabia was an early backer of the Syrian rebel forces and the policy of isolating Mr. Assad, but Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told attendees at last month’s Munich Security Conference that in the Arab world “there is a consensus growing that the status quo is not workable.”
More immediately, the U.S. and its allies are confronting the questions of how to deal with the human tragedy caused by the earthquake, which killed an estimated 6,000 people inside Syria in addition to some 44,000 dead in Turkey. The U.N. is seeking an immediate $397 million for aid to Syria, but has run into problems because most of the damage was concentrated in the rebel-held northwestern part of the country.
Financial and humanitarian aid to Syria has quickly become a political nightmare, some specialists warn. Despite its major limitations and lack of control over much of the country, the Assad regime remains the key actor in Syria, making it difficult to funnel aid dollars into the country without some of the money ending up in government pockets.
“It’s crucial not to allow Assad to profit from reconstruction aid. This would be akin to subsidizing murder after the fact,” said Michael Rubin, a former Defense Department official and now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
A perfect storm
Critics say the administration’s approach, while well-intentioned, lacks the ambition and scope needed to address such a monumental challenge.
“It’s unsustainable,” Mr. Lister said. “From the outside, it looks like we’re essentially doing nothing and kicking the can down the road. That creates the optics of a vacuum into which some governments around the world are stepping in and saying, ‘Well, Bashar Assad is here to stay. We’re going to jump on the bandwagon and seek out opportunities.’”
Indeed, the fact that Mr. Assad has remained in power throughout a decadelong civil war, unspeakable destruction and poverty throughout his country, and the continued threat from ISIS is somewhat remarkable. He owes his political survival in part to his allies, mainly Iran and Russia, both of which have proxy troops operating inside Syria to help prop up the regime.
In one more sign that Syria’s long isolation in the region is easing came earlier this week, when Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry made his first visit to Damascus since Syria was booted out of the Arab League more than a decade ago at the height of the pro-democracy Arab Spring movement.
Mr. Shoukry, who met with Mr. Assad on the visit, described the trip as “primarily humanitarian” in light of the recent earthquake, but analysts said it was the latest sign that U.S. hopes to isolate and eventually topple the regime in Damascus were fading.
“There’s an opening for governments to establish relationships with the Assad regime because of the humanitarian aid that’s needed, thus forcing a political conversation about reestablishing relations and rehabilitating Assad,” Nader Hashemi, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, told the Al Jazeera news network this week.
The presence of foreign fighters is yet another complicating factor, a reflection of the bewildering checkerboard of contending forces operating inside the country. So, too, are Iran-backed Shiite militias such as Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, which over a period of years have used Syria as a base from which to launch attacks on U.S. forces inside the country and in neighboring Iraq.
Fighters with Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, meanwhile, have spent years inside Syria. The experience they’ve gained there is now paying dividends in Ukraine, where Wagner troops reportedly are among the most effective pieces of Moscow’s fighting force.
Negotiating a cease-fire amid that complex set of circumstances, and with ISIS a continued problem, is difficult enough. But there are other long-term issues to contend with.
Officials say that deteriorating conditions at Syria’s al-Hol camp, home to thousands of displaced Syrians, have turned the facility into a potential breeding ground for future terrorists.
“There is a literal ‘ISIS army’ in detention in Iraq and Syria,” U.S. Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, said last year in a detailed CENTCOM report laying out ongoing American-led operations to defeat ISIS across Iraq and Syria.
“There are, today, more than 10,000 ISIS leaders and fighters in detention facilities throughout Syria and more than 20,000 ISIS leaders and fighters in detention facilities in Iraq,” Gen. Kurilla said.
“Finally, we have the potential next generation of ISIS,” he said. “These are the more than 25,000 children in the al-Hol camp who are in danger. These children in the camp are prime targets for ISIS radicalization. The international community must work together to remove these children from this environment by repatriating them to their countries or communities of origin while improving conditions in the camp.”
The al-Hol camp and the ISIS detention sites in Iraq and Syria pose both long-term and short-term challenges for the U.S. and its allies. The most pressing concern is the possibility of prison uprisings such as the January 2022 breakout at the Al-Hasakah facility in Syria. More than 400 ISIS fighters were killed during the fight to contain the breakout, along with more than 100 members of the SDF who also died in the battle.
The sheer scope of the challenge, analysts say, is hard to grasp.
“We have 56,000 women and children and 10,000 men from about 60 different countries around the world [in detention] in an active war zone. They’re not being held in an isolated island off Cuba,” said Mr. Lister, drawing a distinction between the situation in Syria and U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. “This is a problem the scale of which and the consequences of which I don’t think anyone in government has acknowledged.”
