Syria and the Arab world

The civil war in Syria is the bloodiest offshoot of the Arab Spring rebellions that swept through the region in late 2010 and 2011.

Twenty months into the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime, U.S. strategy remains enigmatic. The United States won’t officially arm the rebels, but it supports regional allies pouring weapons into the battlefield. For months, American diplomats bet on a council of exiles to lead the transition before abruptly dumping them in search of “broader representation,” especially Syrians actually fighting in the conflict. And yet, U.S. interlocutors still maintain only limited channels to rebel commanders, preferring to deal with the “nonviolent opposition,” which enjoys less legitimacy among Syrians.

Allowing the war to continue has created a vacuum in the region, which could lead to radicalization and far greater extremist influence in Syria itself and to a re- gional conflict, drawing in Turkey and possibly other countries.

Some American officials say the U.S. reluctance to take the leadership role in Syria is the result of learning the wrong lessons from the Libya engagement; and indeed, the failure of the U.S. and its allies to help ensure security after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi resulted in a vacuum that has allowed radical groups to operate openly. phased withdrawal that will see all U.S. combat forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

There is much, however, that remains unclear or that Obama has yet to decide. Major unknowns: how quickly the remaining 68,000 U.S. combat troops will leave and how many will remain to train and advise the Afghan army and to conduct operations against al-Qaida and allied groups based in Pakistan. His new administration also will have to negotiate an accord with Kabul governing the status of any remaining U.S. forces. That could prove difficult.

Obama’s approach has been built around a 33,000-strong troop surge into the Taliban’s southern heartland that ended in September and an effort to start peace talks between insurgent leaders and President Hamid Karzai’s government.

The surge hurt the Taliban but failed to extinguish the insurgency, while the peace talks initiative appears to have all but collapsed. Meanwhile, the unpopular Karzai is to leave office after April 2014 presidential elections, corruption remains endemic and a reduction in foreign funds threatens to drive the desperately poor country deeper into poverty.