Over the weekend, Paris hosted an international conference to discuss military measures against ISIS militants who are now embedded from Aleppo to Baghdad.
The talks were attended by European and Arab states, the five UN Security Council permanent members, and representatives of the EU, Arab League, and United Nations. All of the guests pledged to help the Iraqi government fight ISIS.
But, as Reuters notes, "a statement after Monday's conference made no mention at all of Syria."
Meanwhile, the allies of Bashar al-Assad are exploiting the lack of clarity to protect the Syrian regime.
"The best way of fighting ISIS and terrorism in the region is to help and strengthen the Iraqi and Syrian governments, which have been engaged in a serious struggle against terrorism," Iranian deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told a visiting French lawmaker.
Mohammad Ali Jafari, the chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, said that the U.S. "will regret an attack on Syria." And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Assad must be included.
"One cannot but feel concerned by publicly stated intentions to attack the [Islamic State] positions in Syria's territory without interaction with the Syrian government," Lavrov said in Paris. "Syria, as well as Iran, are our natural allies in the fight."
The US has expanded its air war against ISIS in Iraq. But the Obama administration doesn't seem to have a unified position on what to do about Assad, who is widely viewed as part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
"Statements by the president and his officials suggest that the Syria component of the strategy will be pushed off until the last stage of the campaign, which will not take place until after Obama leaves office," Mike Doran, senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy, told Business Insider in an email.
The remaining questions and considerations "suggest that Obama's Syria policy has not evolved as much as it appears," Doran added. "He is still keeping the civil war at arms length, still skeptical of building up the [Free Syrian Army], and as unwilling as ever to support the ouster of Assad."
For more than three years, Assad has argued that he is fighting terrorism while facilitating the rise of extremist groups, the most powerful of which is now ISIS.
"The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) emerged as one of those facts created to ensure Assad’s survival as he and his Iranian backers seek to frame this conflict as a regional sectarian issue, with a classical choice between military powers and Sunni extremists," Syrian diplomat Bassam Barabandi, who spent several decades in the Syrian Foreign Ministry, wrote in the Atlantic Council.
"Now that ISIS has fully matured, the Assad regime and Iran offer themselves as partners to the United States."
And it's clear that the fight against ISIS must involve actions in Syria.
"Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no," Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters at the Pentagon last month.
Obama reportedly said privately that Syria shooting at U.S. planes would lead to Assad's overthrow, although Secretary of State John Kerry said that the U.S. would "communicate" with Assad's government to avoid any potential clashes. The administration also says it wants to bolster the nationalist Syrian opposition, but has given no indication that the U.S. would help them in the crucial battle of Aleppo.
"It is Aleppo, Syria’s largest metropolitan area, that presents ISIS’ best opportunity for expanding its claimed caliphate," Jean-Marie Guéhenno and Noah Bonsey of the International Crisis Group wrote in The New York Times."An effective strategy for halting, and eventually reversing, ISIS’ expansion should begin there, and soon."
The administration says it won't cooperate militarily with Iran, but has established "back channels" to discuss the fight against ISIS. Whether those discussions have involved Syria is unknown.
The Wall Street Journal notes that U.S. officials are concerned that Iranian proxies could target U.S. interests "if [the Iranians] view American military operations in Iraq and Syria as posing a threat to Iran's core objectives and the rule of Mr. Assad."
And any U.S. action against Tehran's interests would hinder the Obama administration's overarching goal of a nuclear deal and reconciliation with Iran.
"Practically speaking, Obama is in an alignment with Iran against ISIS," Doran stated. "That includes alignment with Assad. That is the trickiest part of the strategy, because Assad's reputation is so low at home and among America's traditional allies, such as Saudi Arabia, that the US cannot directly engage with the regime in Damascus.
"So what it does instead is hedges, delays, and prevaricates, paying lip service to the goals of the FSA without ever putting serious muscle behind them."
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