U.S. new Syria strategy to seek removal of Assad in parallel with defeat of ISIS

“Developments on the ground have caused the national security team to collectively conclude we may not have time for Iraq first. In an ideal world you would drive ISIL out of Iraq and pivot to Syria. But if by then the moderate opposition has been smacked and ISIL is still there, that doesn’t help,” a senior administration official said.

The fundamental problem the United States and its Western allies faced is that they appeared to be willing to use their military might to defend Iran’s allies — the Shi’a regime in Iraq and the Alawite regime in Syria – at the expense of the Sunni majority in Syria and the substantial Sunni minority in Iraq. That perception prompted thousands of Sunni volunteers from around the world to rush to join ISIS ranks, and has led major regional Sunni countries such as Turkey tacitly to support ISIS campaign (the Qatari government, and wealthy individuals in the Gulf States, have been supporting ISIS not so tacitly).

Sunnis in the region also note the U.S. apparent acquiescence to three more developments which have enhanced Iran’s sway and influence in the region: the de facto creation of a Shi’a state-within-state in Lebanon under Hezbollah, the takeover last month of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, by the pro-Iranian Zaydi Shiites from the Houthi clan, and the apparent willingness of the united States to allow Iran to retain a residual nuclear weapons-related capability.

The cumulative effect of these developments and perceptions has caused the regional Arab anti-ISIS coalition to begin to fray, and calls for formulating a realistic strategy to remove Assad from power to grow louder.

Turkey has been explicit in conditioning its support for an anti-ISIS campaign on a simultaneous campaign to remove Assad from power.

The options being considered by the administration include the establishment of a no-fly zone on the border with Turkey to offer refugees relief form continuing attacks by the Syrian military and allow the moderate rebels protection from the Syrian air force as they train for action against the regime. The options also call for an acceleration and expansion of the Pentagon program to vet, train and arm the moderate Syria opposition.

The plan to vet and then train and arm moderate Syrian rebels was announced four months ago, but is yet to begin. Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told CNN “The vetting hasn’t started. Once it does start, that will be about a three- to five-month process and then it’s about 8-9 months of training after that…. So we still got a ways to go.”

Obama’s unwillingness more directly to tackle the issue of the removal of Assad from power was already criticized by senior members of his previous national security team, chief among them former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

In the current team, the criticism, which is shared by many of the president’s top national security advisers, has been led by Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Last month Hagel sent a strongly worded memo to National Security Advisor Susan Rice in which, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke with CNN’s Barbara Starr, Hagel was “expressing concern about overall Syria strategy” and expressing a fear that the United States is risking its gains in the war against ISIS if adjustments are not made. The official said the focus of the memo was the “need to have a sharper view of what do about the Assad regime.”

“It has been pretty clear for some time that supporting the moderate opposition in the hopes of toppling Assad, isn’t going to work,” another senior official said.

The administration’s apparent ambivalence regarding the removal of Assad from power has also caused the anti-ISIS regional coalition to begin to fray. Kerry and General John Allen, the U.S. envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, have reported back to the White House that key allies like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey, have been more insistently calling for a framework for a political transition in Syria which would end with the removal of Assad.

“What really tipped this into a more vigorous reassessment was hearing from our coalition partners that they are not convinced by the Syria part and this strategy only works if there is a more coherent Syria piece,” said a senior official.

The growing irritation of Arab members of the anti-ISIS coalition with the absence of a “remove Assad” component in the U.S. anti-ISIS strategy, has led Kerry in recent months to intensify discussion with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Russia about a diplomatic path to transitioning President Bashar Assad, his family, and his inner circle out of power, while maintaining large parts of the regime and institutions of the state.

The problem, U.S. Arab allies told the administration, is that such a brokered Assad transition could take months.

“It’s not going to be tomorrow and I don’t think anyone even believes that is physically possible. But even if it is a six or twelve month plan as long as it has an exit for Assad,” one senior Arab diplomat told CNN. “But we are glad that we finally see a meeting of the minds with the U.S. that there needs to be a rethinking of the strategy.”

Assad’s two staunchest supporters, Iran and Russia, will have to play a role in a Syrian transition.

American officials and Arab diplomats confirmed that Russia has tacitly endorsed the idea of a Syria without Assad, but note that Moscow has not done much to bring about a change on the ground.

“The Russians are not our friend here,” one of the senior administration officials said. “They have given vague expressions of empathy but that is not exactly the same as saying we are with you and are going to rid of him. They are still arming Assad and providing him direct support.”

Iran observers have noted that there has been a debate in the upper echelons of the Iranian regime about Assad’s fate, but so far there are no signs that the supreme leader or the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps are contemplating getting rid of him.

“The moderates are not calling the shots in Syria,” an official said. “The Iranians have come up with plans like constitutional reforms and ultimately an election, and it is better than nothing, but it still doesn’t include Assad going and it is not the basis for an agreement.”

Saudi Arabia and Russia have been in talks recently about issues of mutual concern, and Arab diplomats have expressed the hope that if Saudi Arabia and Russia could agree on a political framework for a political transition in Syria which would include the removal of Assad, Iran may relax its insistence that Assad must remain in power in any future arrangement in Syria.

“It is possible if Russia agrees, the Iranians will feel they are the only ones who have not played a productive role,” one Arab diplomat told CNN. “We know if we agree it will be the least common dominator, where you maintain whoever you can from the regime that doesn’t have blood on their hands. That is something we believe the Syrian people can accept. ”

Former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, who left his post in February because of his frustration with the administration’s ambivalence toward the Assad issue, said any reassessment of the strategy in Syria must also reconsider the coalition air campaign in Syria, which is squeezing the beleaguered opposition even further.

“The administration needs to have an honest assessment of whether or not its material assistance to the moderate opposition in Northern Syria and the manner in which it has constructed airstrikes in eastern Syria has empower or disempowered the same moderate opposition upon which it will depend to contain the Islamic state in Syria as well as play a vital role in achieving an eventually political solution in Syria.,” Ford told CNN.

“The air campaign so far has infuriated the Syrians fighting the regime. For the first time since the Syrian uprising started in 2011 they are burning American flags because they think we are helping the regime instead of helping them.”