Can IS be ousted from Syria without Bashar al-Assad’s help?

BEIRUT — As the U.S.-led coalition tightens the noose around the Islamic State group in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad’s Iranian-backed troops are also seizing back territory from the militants with little protest from Washington, a sign of how American options are limited without a powerful ally on the ground.

Washington is loath to cooperate with Assad’s internationally ostracized government. But it will be difficult to uproot IS militants and keep them out with only the Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S. — and a coalition spokesman pointed out that Assad’s gains ease the burden on those forces.

Letting Assad grab IS territory, however, risks being seen as the U.S. legitimizing his continued rule and likely would strengthen his hand in his war against the already struggling rebellion. It also threatens to further empower Assad’s allies, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, which both have forces alongside his troops in the assault into IS-held territory.

Within the Trump administration, there is a split over whether to aggressively try to stem Assad’s advances, said a senior U.S. official, who wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters and requested anonymity.

Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the anti-IS coalition, said Syrian government forces are welcome to reclaim IS-held territory and fill the vacuum once the extremist group is gone.

The statement was startling — even more so because soon after President Donald Trump last week warned Assad he would pay “a heavy price,” claiming “potential” evidence that Syria was preparing for another chemical weapons attack.

The mixed messages reveal a discomfiting fact most policy makers would rather not spell out: Assad is a pariah but he is also a convenient tool to secure and govern territory in majority-Arab cities in a complex terrain.

The situation in Syria is a contrast to Iraq, where the coalition and the Iraqi government, working hand in glove, appear to be on the verge of retaking the main IS redoubt in city of Mosul.

The Syrian government has repeatedly suggested that everyone is welcome to work with it to defeat IS.

Mohammad Kheir Akkam, a Syrian lawmaker, questioned U.S. support for the Kurdish-led forces “despite the fact that the Syrian-Russian cooperation has achieved more results in combating terrorism,” while U.S. efforts have “had the opposite result.”

The U.S. so far has shunned any cooperation with the Syrian leader, whom Trump described as an “animal.” Instead, it has partnered with local Kurdish and Arab forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Those fighters are spearheading the assault on the Islamic State group’s self-declared capital, Raqqa in northern Syria, and then face the prospect of assaulting the group’s final major stronghold to the southeast, in Deir el-Zour.

But U.S. support for the Kurdish-led group has angered Turkey, which views it as an extension of a Kurdish insurgency within its own territory. The SDF is also viewed with suspicion by the predominantly Arab residents of Raqqa and Deir el-Zour.

Furthermore, the SDF, numbering around 50,000 fighters, is already risking overstretch and is in no way ready for the more challenging battle in Deir el-Zour.

Assad and his Iranian allies, on the other hand, have steadily positioned themselves in key areas on the flanks of the U.S.-led war against IS, grabbing territory on several fronts, including on the outskirts of Raqqa and Deir el-Zour. With Russian and Iranian support, Assad has made steady gains and now controls almost all of Syria’s major cities except those held by IS.

The symbolism was striking last week as a smiling Assad paid a visit to central Hama, driving his own car, and to a Russian air base in western Syria, where he posed alongside Russian generals and inside the cockpit of a Russian SU-35 fighter jet.