CIA-backed Fighters Killed Or
Wounded 100,000 Syrian Soldiers July 23, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - What did the CIA’s covert assistance program for Syrian rebels accomplish? Bizarrely, the biggest consequence may be that it helped trigger the Russian military intervention in 2015 that rescued President Bashar al-Assad — achieving the opposite of what the program intended. Syria adds another chapter to the star-crossed history of CIA paramilitary action. These efforts begin with the worthy objective of giving presidents policy options short of all-out war. But they often end with an untidy mess, in which rebels feel they have been “seduced and abandoned” by the promise of U.S. support that disappears when the political winds change.
One Syrian opposition leader highlighted
for me the danger for his rebel comrades
now: “The groups that decided to work
with the U.S. already have a target on
their back from the extremists, but now
will not be able to defend themselves.”
The
demise of the Syria program
was disclosed
by The Post this week, but it’s been
unraveling since President Trump took
office. Trump wanted to work more closely
with Russia to stabilize Syria, and a
program that targeted Russia’s allies didn’t
fit. The
White House’s own Syria policy
remains a hodgepodge of half-baked
assumptions and conflicting goals, but
that’s a subject for another day.
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The
rise and fall of the Syria covert action
program conveys some useful lessons about
this most delicate weapon in the United
States’ arsenal. To summarize, the program
was too late, too limited and too dependent
on dubious partners, such as Turkey and
Saudi Arabia. It was potent enough to
threaten Assad and draw Russian
intervention, but not strong enough to
prevail. Perhaps worst, the CIA-backed
fighters were so divided politically, and so
interwoven with extremist opposition groups,
that the rebels could never offer a viable
political future.
That’s
not to say that the CIA effort was bootless.
Run from secret operations centers in Turkey
and Jordan, the program pumped many hundreds
of millions of dollars to many dozens of
militia groups.
One
knowledgeable official estimates that the
CIA-backed fighters may have killed or
wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their
allies over the past four years. By
the summer of 2015, the rebels were at the
gates of Latakia on the northern coast,
threatening Assad’s ancestral homeland and
Russian bases there. Rebel fighters were
also pushing toward Damascus.
CIA analysts began to speak that summer
about a “catastrophic success” — in which
the rebels would topple Assad without
creating a strong, moderate government. In a
June 2015 column,
I quoted a U.S. intelligence official
saying, “Based on current trend lines, it is
time to start thinking about a post-Assad
Syria.” Russian President Vladimir Putin was
warily observing the same trend, especially
after an urgent
visit to Moscow
in July that
year by Maj. Gen.
Qasem Soleimani,
commander of Iran’s Quds Force and Assad’s
regional patron.
Putin got the message: He intervened
militarily in
September 2015,
decisively changing the balance of the
Syrian war. What Trump did in ending the CIA
program was arguably just recognizing that
ground truth.
This article was first published by The Washington Post - See also - Syria requests compensation from US over destruction wrought by war The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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