I’ll start with that weakest of argument points, an appeal to authority. Today Laura Rozen tweeted:
Predict that US will move to McCain's position on Syria.
Now, that’s not a whole lot. But folks who follow US foreign policy know that Rozen is one of the closer observers of the Washington view, and her predictions are worth noting.
“McCain’s position on Syria” to which she refers is, of course, to bomb the heck out of it:
The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria through air strikes on President Bashar al-Assad's forces, U.S. Senator John McCain said on Monday.
"The ultimate goal of air strikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in Syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organize and plan their political and military activities against Assad," McCain, an influential Republican who lost the White House to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race, said in a Senate floor speech.
Officially, of course, this is not the US position. President Obama as recently as yesterday rejected unilateral military intervention, pointed out that Syria was not Libya, and reminded the country that not all problems have a military solution:
'For us to take military action unilaterally, as some have suggested, or to think that somehow there is some simple solution, I think is a mistake,' Obama said.
'What happened in Libya was we mobilised the international community, had a UN Security Council mandate, had the full co-operation of the region, Arab states, and we knew that we could execute very effectively in a relatively short period of time. This is a much more complicated situation.'
Various Administration officials followed this line closely. So we are not at direct intervention yet. Nonetheless, I argue that the US is clearly drifting closer to intervention, and this drift will accelerate in the future.
The present
As Josh Rogin reports in Foreign Policy Magaine, the US is already moving toward a more active role, including at least tacit support of arming the rebels:
The Obama administration is moving to provide direct assistance to the internal opposition in Syria for the first time, marking a shift in U.S. policy toward a more aggressive plan to help oust President Bashar al-Assad.
Last week, a group of senior Obama administration officials met to finalize a package of options for aiding both the internal and external Syrian opposition, to include providing direct humanitarian and communications assistance to the Syrian opposition, two administration officials confirmed to The Cable. This meeting of what's known as the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council set forth a new and assertive strategy for expanding U.S. engagement with Syrian activists and providing them with the means to organize themselves, but stops short of providing any direct military assistance to the armed opposition.
For now, riskier options, such as creating a no-fly zone in Syria, using U.S. military force there, or engaging directly with the Free Syrian Army, are all still off the table. But the administration has decided not to oppose, either in public or in private, the arming of the rebels by other countries, the officials said. (Weasel: Qatar claims to already be arming them.)
…
The administration is planning to greatly expand its interactions with the external Syrian opposition
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Meanwhile, the administration wants to bolster the new defense committee established by the SNC last week, hoping to solidify that body's prominence as the contact point for coordinating military and technical assistance to the rebels, if a decision is taken later to move in that direction.
Additionally, the US is reviewing (and openly discussing its review of) military options against Syria.
According to Def. Sec. Leon Panetta:
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. is reviewing potential military action to ease the crisis in Syria even as he cautioned that the opposition and international support aren’t unified enough to intervene now.
Josh Rogin also picks up confirmation that the US has completed a key planning exercise on Syria:
RT @kristina_wong: @Martin_Dempsey confirms military has finished a METT-T on Syria.
A
METT-T is an exercise mapping out the Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops Available, and Time Available for an operation.
Additionally, there are increasing reports of US drones operating in Syria:
Along with the satellite image released by the US Embassy in Damascus some American defense officials told the NBC that “A good number of American drones are operating in the skies of Syria, monitoring the Syrian military’s attacks against opposition forces and innocent civilians alike”.
Recent video footage from March 4 shows
another drone of indeterminate origin over Homs.
Finally, I point to a December, 2011 internal email from STRATFOR released by Wikileaks. I know, I know, the wannabes at STRATFOR are not terrible credible sources. Their “analysis” is particularly atrocious. Nonetheless, this email is not analysis, but simply a report on a conversation, and is worth reading:
I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic
studies group - guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain
to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they're operating in. It
was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level,
including one French and one British representative who are liaising with
the US currently out of DC.
They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I
got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level
of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what's the
strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a
couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams
(presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground
focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force
intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn't much of a Free Syrian
Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are
being done out of 'prudence.' The way it was put to me was, 'look at this
way - the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the
best it's been since 2001.' They have been told to prepare contingencies
and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is
all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.
I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working
toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air camapign to give a
Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from
that idea, saying that the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla
attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite
forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn't be a need for air
cover, and they wouldn't expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in
columns anyway.
They emphasized how the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a
piece of cake. Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much
denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey
are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that
they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not
an easy one.
Thus,
in the present the US is steadily getting more involved in Syria, while still distancing itself from direct military intervention.
In the Future
This process will almost certainly continue in the future. Note the comments from both Obama and other members of the Administration:
- Obama: 'For us to take military action unilaterally…I think is a mistake. What happened in Libya was we mobilised the international community…”
- Panetta: …cautioned that the opposition and international support aren’t unified enough to intervene now.
These are just two stories, but there are hundreds with similar reports: the US is distancing itself from unilateral or hasty action, it is not in any way ruling out or even directly opposing military intervention (in whatever form that happens). Indeed, it is giving support (though not arms) to the rebels, helping them organize, allowing others to arm them, and conducting detailed aerial reconnaissance (and possibly already using Special Forces). Meanwhile, every article also notes that a central focus of the US’s diplomatic activity is to build the international consensus against Syria. As Rogin’s article notes at the top, the US is also working to unify and strengthen the opposition inside Syria. These actions lay the groundwork for future intervention.
Iran is the Goal
The US is not aiding the rebels simply as a humanitarian gesture: undermining Assad in Syria is a key US goal. The reason for such is not Syria, in and of itself, but rather Iran. The connection is hardly shocking: Iran and Syria have been allies for 30 years against both the US and Israel. The US policy of “isolating Syria” is simply a twist on the policy the US has used for years (really decade) to “isolate Iran” to force it to a more acceptable position, a policy which has been the centerpiece of Obama’s Iran campaign.
By undermining Syria, the US has an opportunity to strip Iran of its closed ally in the region, an ally that has in the past rebuffed repeated suggestions that it break with Iran. To demonstrate US policy, there is no better authority than Dennis Ross, who frequently speaks for the US Administration (he often speaks for the Israeli government position as well). In a February New York Times opinion, Ross, reliably pro-Israel, took what many saw as an unexpected position challenging the Netanyahu pro-war with Iran narrative and calling for negotiations. The general view of this op-ed was that the Administration was signaling to Israel through Ross (a voice they trust) that it would not support a war. However, the details of the op-ed are critical to understanding what it really meant. Some key paragraphs:
Today, Iran is more isolated than ever. The regional balance of power is shifting against Tehran, in no small part because of its ongoing support for the beleaguered government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The Assad regime is failing, and in time, Iran will lose its only state ally in the Arab world and its conduit for arming the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
…
The Obama administration has now created a situation in which diplomacy has a chance to succeed. It remains an open question whether it will.
…
Moreover, given Mr. Obama’s stated determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Iran’s leaders may actually be making the use of force against their nuclear facilities more likely by playing for time.
…
With Iran reeling from sanctions, the proper environment now exists for diplomacy to work. The next few months will determine whether it succeeds.
The Administration here is clearly offering Iran real talks, but on a very tight deadline. After a “few months,” “the use of force” is “more likely.” Only two things change in the next few months: one is that European sanctions on Iranian oil go into effect, an action that has no immediate or direct affect on the military balance in the near term. The other is that, for the Administration, “the regional balance of power is shifting against Tehran…the Assad regime is falling.”
Thus, Ross’s op-ed clearly lays out the game plan: the US is committed to negotiations while it dismantles Iran’s key regional ally, Syria (and also thus isolates Hezbollah). Meanwhile, it breaks down Syria to clear the way for military action if the negotiations fail. Panetta recently confirmed this view, that the Syria uprising was needed to isolate and weaken Iran:
The defense secretary claimed the uprising in Syria was isolating Iran and hinders the Islamic Republic's continued efforts to support terror groups that threaten Israel and regional stability. According to Panetta, even Hamas has distanced itself from Bashar Assad's regime, and Iran is quickly becoming embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad's only supporter in the Mideast.
Of course, all that only works if Assad actually loses (or is trapped in a quagmire without escape). Recent reports, including the Syria reconquest of Homs, have made clear Assad is winning (or at the least is not losing). Events in Syria are not transpiring on their own in the direction US policy needs them to go. Hence, for the US to continue its policy, it must intervene, at least enough to keep the resistance alive and fighting.
Gen. Mattis confirmed this:
McCain also quoted CENTCOM chief Gen. James Mattis, who testified Tuesday that "Assad is clearly achieving what he wants to achieve" that his military campaign is "gaining physical momentum on the battlefield." Mattis also noted that Assad's downfall would be "the biggest strategic setback for Iran in 25 years."
This intervention may take the form of arming the rebels, sending Special Forces to support them in any number of capacities, helping foreign volunteers (jihadists) join them, or a bombing campaign. But the US will continue to drift into more and more direct intervention until its policy goal of undermining Assad and isolating Iran is more fully achieved.
Conclusion
The US is already stepping up its involvement in Syria, and continually working to gain international support for further increasing involvement. US strategic policies vis a vis Iran (supplemented by a growing drumbeat of calls for intervention) will push the US to continue its drift toward direct intervention in Syria.