“The reality is that Mr. Assad has become a necessary, if still unpalatable, potential ally in combating the Islamic State.”
So says The New York Times Editorial Board. Far from explaining their position on the matter, though, they tossed in the idea of Assad as an ally at the end of the editorial, almost as an afterthought. In fact, their focus for the most part is on Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), running through an abridged list of the atrocities the group has committed.
The Editorial Board then goes on to explain the failed attempt to refer the war crimes committed by the regime of Bashar Assad to the International Criminal Court. It is only then, in one sentence and one sentence only, that they mention Assad possibly being “potential ally.” They then immediately bounce back to ISIS, claiming that the United Nations Security Council should refer the group to the ICC.
There are a lot of problems with what the Editorial Board wrote and a lot of questions that are raised, such as what exactly the point of referring a group like ISIS to the ICC is. It’s not as if “Caliph” al-Baghdadi and ISIS have done anything to make anyone believe that they put much stock in international law or human rights.
The most curious assertion they make, though, is that of Assad’s value as a potential ally in the fight against ISIS.
A complete lack of justification is quite telling; the Editorial Board fails to justify taking on Assad as a partner because there is no justification for a complete reversal of American policy towards him.
It would make more sense if Assad was in a stronger position than he is currently in. But the past two weeks have brought repeated setbacks and defeats for his regime. First, Assad’s forces lost control of the southern city of Bosra. A Hezbollah-led offensive in the Golan area has failed to make any headway.
Nasib, the last remaining functional border crossing into Jordan, also fell into rebel hands as the regime continued to lose ground in the south. Operations to retake Aleppo from the rebels and Deir Ezzor from ISIS have both stalled with little visible hopes for progress.
More important, though, was the fall of the northern city Idlib after a dramatic offensive by Syrian rebels led by Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al-Qaeda franchise in the country.
Contrary to popular belief, it was not a surprise offensive. Combining their forces together in a coalition calling itself Jaish al-Fatah, the Army of Conquest, the rebels had been noisily preparing for the assault on Idlib for some time, yet regime forces were caught flat-footed when the attack finally came.
Jaish al-Fatah crashed through their lines and had the city under their control within a matter of days, and they have continued to push forward since then. The fall of Idlib represents the gravest defeat of pro-Assad forces since Raqqa fell in 2013.
The defeats have also been coming quite close to home for Assad. ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (though al-Nusra denies cooperating) launched a joint attack on the Palestinian refugee camp at Yarmouk near Damascus earlier this week, and have overrun upwards of 90% of the camp. The camp, which has suffered from years of bombings, fighting between various parties to the civil war, and a consistent lack of basic humanitarian supplies, sits on the outskirts of Damascus mere miles from the seat of Assad’s government.
Palestinian militias, led by Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, are struggling to hold onto what little ground they still control. SANA, the Syrian state news agency, claims that regime forces have encircled the camp to try to contain the situation. If they are indeed encircling the camp, then they are doing their utmost to avoid contact with ISIS, as there has been no reported fighting between them.
Assad is holding on, but only just so.
Although he has put on a brave face in interviews, most recently with Charlie Rose of CBS, events on the ground point towards an increasingly precarious situation for him. The army is weak and overstretched while the Shabiha, Baathist militias loyal to Assad, is unreliable at best and is not capable of conducting operations on its own.
Instead of native Syrian forces, Assad has become increasingly dependent on Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah and Shi’a militias from Iraq. ISIS’ advances in Iraq proved also painful to Assad, as many of the Iraqi militias had to turn around and head home to fight there. Hezbollah is in charge of operations along the Lebanese border and in the Golan, and is also helping to secure Damascus.
This is who the Times’ Editorial Board is calling a “necessary … potential ally.” Leaving aside the small matters of his repeated use of chemical weapons, indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas, and mass imprisonment and torture of regime opponents, the Syrian President has hardly proven himself to be a worthwhile ally in the fight against ISIS.
Regime forces, with the exception of at Deir Ezzor, have made a point of avoiding confrontation with ISIS, and for good reason: they don’t want to make the Islamic State angry. Let them focus their wrath on the Kurds or the Free Syrian Army; the last thing pro-Assad forces want or need is a powerful group like ISIS coming after them.
Why, then, even consider an alliance (or something resembling an alliance) with Assad? The cons clearly outweigh the pros; whatever usefulness Assad could bring to the table would be completely outmatched by the dramatic costs of a complete volte-face of American policy. The United States would be outcast in the Middle East, with Turkey and the Saudis leading the uproar.
Some rebel groups would probably turn and join ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra. The United States would gain an ally of dubious value while losing scores of other allies. Iran would clearly benefit from the dramatic shake-up in American relations with the Arab states, and ISIS would as well.
The New York Times Editorial Board apparently took none of these factors into consideration.
Looking at the man himself, is Assad trustworthy? No. Is Assad reliable? Except when it comes to Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah, no.
The United States has tried playing nice with Assad (and his father Hafez before him) a number of times for a variety of reasons, and each time it has proven futile.
“Well," the thinking has gone, "if we’re a bit more friendly with Bashar, then he’ll help push the Palestinians towards peace/help make Hamas become less violent/stop interfering in Lebanon/lock down the border with Iraq so men, money, material, etc stop flowing across and fueling the insurgency that is killing Americans/curtail his weapons of mass destruction programs/be willing to negotiate an end to his presidency/so on and so forth.”
Yet it has never worked. Whether it was the father or the son, the Assads have proven themselves to be implacable foes of the United States, and that is not going to change.
Assad will do what Assad has to do for Assad to remain in power. Not to end the war, not to end the bloodshed, not to unify the country, but to stay in power. If he has to make it seem like he is cozying up to the United States (or willing to consider doing so) in order to keep his grip on authority, then he’ll do it, but those advocating for a rapprochement with Assad would be wise to remember who he really is.
“The reality” is not what The New York Times Editorial Board claims it to be. Choosing between Assad and ISIS is a false dilemma, as intellectually satiating as it apparently is for some to think in such terms.
The soft-spoken almost-ophthalmologist remains a brutal dictator whose inability to ponder even the slightest challenge to his absolute authority has led to nearly five years of horrendous bloodshed and the rise of ISIS as a regional force, the same group that the Times’ Editorial Board is saying that the United States should partner with Assad in fighting.
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