Coalition content to let Assad make territorial gains
BEIRUT — As the U.S.-led coalition tightens the noose around the Islamic State group in Syria, President Bashar Assad’s Iranianbacked 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 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 Islamic State territory, however, risks the U.S. being seen as legitimizing his continued rule and would likely 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 Islamic State-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 requested anonymity.
Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the anti-Islamic State coalition, said Syrian government forces are welcome to reclaim territory held by the militants and fill the vacuum once the group is gone.
The statement was startling — even more so because soon after President 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 that 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 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 currently spearheading the assault on the Islamic State group’s selfdeclared capital, Raqqa in northern Syria, and then face the prospect of assaulting the group’s final major stronghold to the southeast, in Deir elZour.
Assad and his Iranian allies have positioned themselves in key areas on the flanks of the U.S.-led war against Islamic State, 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 the militants.
The symbolism was striking this 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.