The Iran claim is made further significant because Iran was recently called out by the State Department in their annual Country Reports on Terrorism, which noted that 2012 marked an unprecedented resurgence of Iranian-backed terrorist activity across the globe not seen since the nineties. At face value, the prospect of another nation directly opposing the US-backed party in a conflict is disconcerting enough, let alone one that has sponsored terrorism as emphatically as Iran.
With U.S. partners surrounding Syrian territory (discounting Iraq), any U.S. presence in the region – whether directly supporting the conflict or simply containing it – creates an environment in which any number of hostile or mishap encounters with unfriendly actors could quickly degrade operations.
Chemical Weapons: Upsetting the Balance
The U.S. has stated from the beginning that its major concern in Syria was the location and status of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons stockpiles, the use of which would constitute U.S. involvement in the conflict.
In recent months, there have been several such allegations of both parties to the conflict employing the use of chemical warfare against each other. The problem? Without third-party verification (i.e. someone other than the main players, like the UN) of chemical weapons use, we’re left with a nonsensical game of he-said, she-said. (As of this writing, the UN has yet to send a team into Syria to investigate these claims of chemical weapons usage.
Now that chemical weapons have been used to the extent of crossing President Obama’s ‘red line’, the bigger issue of determining the effects of direct U.S. support to Syrian rebels on Assad’s chemical weapons stockpiles is at stake.
In the context of recent U.S. support, one of the top challenges facing the U.S. is deciding how to arm the Syrian rebels achieves their desired effects but also does not disrupt the stability of chemical weapons, in regards to the actors that control them and whom they are used against.
Other U.S. Activity in the Region
In conjunction with directly providing weapons to Syrian rebels, the White House announced the possibility of implementing a military exclusion zone (MEZ, or no-fly zone) over part of Syria, along the Jordanian border. A MEZ in and of itself is a task that warrants considerable planning, oversight, and execution. Those that worked Northern Watch, Southern Watch, OIF, or previous engagements can attest to that.
It must be noted that as a general consensus, Syria possesses the most dense SAM coverage in the world. Actual capability and operability aside, this is still a fact that will become all the more apparent to any U.S. assets tasked with implementing the MEZ along the Jordanian border. (“SAM” refers to the entirety of Syria’s Air Defense Systems, primarily the anti-aircraft systems used to deny any adversary the ability to enter a designated radius around the system.)
Most importantly, implementing a MEZ places U.S. (and other coalition partners, if any) assets at risk and directly in harm’s way. Determining which U.S. interests are being protected or being threatened to warrant such level of support to the Syrian opposition just became all the more critical.
Syrian Rebels: the AQ Problem
The final issue discussed in this article is in regards to the valid risk of U.S. weapons inadvertently ending up in the hands of al-Nusrah Front (ANF), the alias of our long-time enemy: Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Since designating ANF a foreign terrorist organization in late 2012, the U.S. has kept a sharper eye on their scope of activities, assessing that ANF, “could successfully smuggle WMD, conventional weapons, and operatives across the [sic] the border into Iraq from Syria.”
The prospect alone that AQI has 1) created a front organization and infiltrated various levels of the Syrian opposition, 2) attempted to hijack the opposition’s struggle for freedom from the Assad regime, and 3) is assessed to possess the capability to conduct transnational weapons smuggling operations, should be enough to warrant more extensive questioning from U.S. decision-makers prior to deciding to supply weapons to Syrian rebels. However, the White House remains confident in U.S. ability to support the right groups with the right weapons.
Is this decision – while ideally well-intended and in support of U.S. interests abroad – one that will prove effective in the long-term, once the Assad regime falls and creates yet another power vacuum in the Middle East (think Libya)? Is this decision one that creates a level of forward progress in U.S. foreign policy and our counterterrorism efforts across the globe?
Refine and Supervise
As the U.S. plan to arm Syrian rebels develops, the American public must remain aware and educated about what actions are being taken in the Middle East. It is not acceptable to gloss through the morning news and simply absorb or accept the various reporting regarding U.S. actions in Syria. A keen watch regarding the issues discussed above must be taken into account so that our policy-makers and decision-makers are held to a standard that demands only the most stringent of decisions and actions; all decisions made in the next coming weeks will determine the shape and intensity of any and all blowback we may experience in regards to foreign policy, counterterrorism operations, and world affairs.
In the rapidly developing 21st century, we need to be looking ahead as far as possible, while retaining lessons learned from previous engagements. There are critical decisions that must be made; decision-makers must face the issues and make the calls that benefit U.S. interests in both the short and long-term aspects.
(Featured Image Courtesy: Pan-African News Wire File Photos)
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