Trump ends covert aid to Syria rebels battling Assad
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has ended the clandestine American programme to provide arms and supplies to Syrian rebel groups, US officials said, a recognition that the effort was failing and that the administration has given up hope of helping to topple the government of President Bashar Assad.
The decision came over a month ago, the officials said, by which time the effort to deliver arms had slowed to a trickle.
It was never publicly announced, just as the beginnings of the programme four years ago, were officially a secret, authorised by President Barack Obama through a “finding” that permitted the CIA to conduct a deniable programme. News of the troublesome programme soon leaked out.
The decision is bound to be welcomed by the Russians, whose military has backed Assad’s government and relentlessly attacked some of the rebel groups that the United States was supplying, under the guise of helping to eradicate terrorists.
On Tuesday, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, charged that the United States had helped destabilise the region, and portrayed Iran as merely defending its interests. Washington, instead, views Iran’s aid to the Assad government as part of an effort to restore itself as a major regional power.
From the start, there were doubts that arming disorganised, often internally fractious forces would succeed. Officials in the Obama administration conceded that there was no way to predict the future loyalties of those who received US arms, despite a lengthy vetting process. That problem – getting the weapons into the right hands and assuring they were not passed on to others and used against US troops or allies – plagued the effort soon after it was proposed by Hillary Clinton, who was then secretary of state, and David Petraeus, the CIA director at the time.
The decision was foreshadowed as early as April, when the Trump administration said that ousting Assad, whose government has fought a civil war that has taken roughly half a million lives, was no longer a priority. Instead, the United States and Russia have been discussing ceasefire zones in the country, the first of which went into effect this month. Those discussions have been possible because Assad, secure in his support from Moscow and Tehran, no longer sees a fundamental threat to his ability to remain in power.
“This is a big deal, but it’s been a long time coming,” Charles Lister, a Syria analyst for the Middle East Institute in Washington, said. “It’s the biggest indication so far of the administration’s having given up on the opposition.”
“After all, the Southern Front has consistently been our most reliable anti-Assad partner,” Lister said, referring to opposition forces fighting Assad in the southern part of the country. “It’s also the result of strong Jordanian pressure, as Amman has been pushing a freeze for a long time. So it was probably inevitable, but it’s nonetheless very significant.’’