| New York Times | - |
BEIRUT, Lebanon - President Obama said the American-led airstrikes in Syria
were intended to punish the terror organizations that threatened the
United States - but would do nothing to aid President Bashar al-Assad of
Syria, who is at war with the ...
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — President Obama said the American-led airstrikes in Syria
were intended to punish the terror organizations that threatened the
United States — but would do nothing to aid President Bashar al-Assad of
Syria, who is at war with the same groups.
But on the third day of strikes, it was increasingly uncertain whether the United States could maintain that delicate balance.
A
Syrian diplomat crowed to a pro-government newspaper that “the U.S.
military leadership is now fighting in the same trenches with the Syrian
generals, in a war on terrorism inside Syria.” And in New York, the new
Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said in an interview that he had
delivered a private message to Mr. Assad on behalf of Washington,
reassuring him that the Syrian government was not the target of
American-led airstrikes.
The
confident statements by Syrian leaders and their allies showed how
difficult it already is for Mr. Obama to go after terrorists operating
out of Syria without getting dragged more deeply into that nation’s
three-and-a-half-year-old civil war. Indeed, the American strikes have
provided some political cover for Mr. Assad, as pro-government Syrians
have become increasingly, even publicly, angry at his inability to
defeat the militants.
Interactive Graphic: A Rogue State Along Two Rivers
On
the other side, Mr. Obama’s Persian Gulf allies, whom he has pointed to
as crucial to the credibility of the air campaign, have expressed
displeasure with the United States’ reluctance to go after Mr. Assad
directly. For years, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
have pressed Washington to join the fight to oust the Syrian president.
And for years, the United States has demurred.
“We
need to create an army to fight the terrorists, but we also have to
fight the regime,” Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, emir of Qatar, said
Thursday in an interview with New York Times editors. “We have to do
both.”
Mr.
Obama told the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday that the
United States would work with its allies to roll back the Islamic State
through military action and support for moderate rebels. But he added,
“The only lasting solution to Syria’s civil war is political: an
inclusive political transition that responds to the legitimate
aspirations of all Syrian citizens, regardless of ethnicity, regardless
of creed.”
Yet
as the Syrian conflict transformed from peaceful, popular calls for
change to a bloody unraveling of the nation, it also became a proxy
battlefield for regional and global interests. Iran and Russia sided
with Mr. Assad. Arab Gulf nations sided with the rebels, though not
always with the same rebels. The United States called for Mr. Assad to
go, but never fully engaged.
The
rise of the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS, prompted
Mr. Obama to jump in, but under the auspices of an antiterrorism
campaign. The United States was not taking sides in the civil war, or at
least it did not intend to. But the minute it entered the battlefield,
it inevitably muddled its standing in Syria and across the Middle East,
analysts and experts in the region said.
When
American attacks, for example, killed militants with the Nusra Front, a
group linked to Al Qaeda, it angered some of the same Syrian insurgents
who Mr. Obama has said will help make up a ground force against the
Islamic State.
Some
of the groups that had said they would support the United States’
mission have now issued statements condemning the American strikes on
the Qaeda-linked militants. Those groups have also expressed concern
that by making the Islamic State its priority, the United States has
acknowledged that it does not seek to unseat Mr. Assad.
Conversely, supporters of the Syrian government say hitting the Nusra Front is proof that the United States has switched sides.
“Of
course coordination exists,” said a pro-government Syrian journalist
speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, who had
criticized the prospect of the strikes but turned practically jubilant
once they began. “How else do you explain the strikes on Nusra?”
But
the battle lines are not so clear-cut, as both sides try to spin the
American involvement to their advantage, pressing Washington to shift
even as Mr. Obama remains determined to stay his course. The Arab allies
have, to Washington’s delight, made no effort to hide their involvement
in the bombing raids. They have, in fact, even boasted of their roles.
Saudi Arabia has released “Top Gun”-style photos of its pilots posing with their jets, and the United Arab Emirates has bragged that one of its pilots is a woman.
But the delight has as much to do with the countries’ hope that the
United States will eventually come around to helping oust Mr. Assad as
it does with aiding the United States in a fight against extremism,
analysts said.
“The
key gulf states agreed to the American request in a large part to try
to steer America’s Syria policy after years of frustration,” said Emile
Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. “They believed that if they had said no to the
Americans, the hope for a shift in U.S. policy toward Syria would be
nil.”
Other commentators said gulf nations frustrated with Mr. Obama’s hesitancy had gladly joined in when his tone changed.
Graphic
Amid Airstrikes Against ISIS, Refugees Flee Syria
A visual guide to the crisis in Iraq and Syria.
“Once
there is a determined America and a determined President Obama, he will
find a receptive ally in the region to work with him,” said Abdulkhaleq
Abdulla, a political analyst in the United Arab Emirates.
At
the same time, these Arab partners see that the United States is once
again depending on regional strongmen and monarchs with absolute
authority to pursue its interests in the region.
For
a time, it appeared that Washington was moving away from that
decades-old model toward supporting popular movements that sought to
bring democracy and greater rights to the region. That infuriated Saudi
Arabia and the other monarchies, but with the collapse of the Arab
Spring and the rise of the Islamic State, the old alliances have been
reinvigorated.
“We are back to the future,” said Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Center,
a Qatar-based branch of the Brookings Institution. “After the rush of
the Arab Spring, there is a realization that they are our real friends
and allies in the region and in this fight.”
American
officials have called the participation of five Arab countries —
Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — in
the Syria campaign essential to combating the perception that the United
States is waging war on Muslims.
All
five are hereditary monarchies that limit political participation and
often face criticism from human rights groups for cracking down on
dissidents.
Saudi
Arabia, a Sunni powerhouse, has wielded its vast oil wealth to support
the Egyptian military in its fight against the Muslim Brotherhood,
funded rebels in Syria and deployed troops in 2011 to help the Sunni
rulers of Bahrain put down a political uprising led by that nation’s
Shiite majority.
The
United Arab Emirates has also contributed to the regional battle
against Islamists, most recently by teaming up with Egypt to bomb them in Libya. At home, it has rounded up Islamist activists and limited free speech.
Qatar,
too, has bankrolled rebels in Syria, and in 2012 it sentenced a poet to
life in prison for reciting a verse deemed insulting to the country’s
ruler. Jordan also criminalizes criticism of the king and limits press
freedoms.
Rights
activists fear that these countries’ partnership with the United States
will make it harder for the West to press them to make reforms.
“These
are states with very problematic human rights records,” said Nicholas
McGeehan, a Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This bonding
together against a common enemy is understandable, but there will be
implications for the human rights in these countries.”
The
Arab allies worked to bolster their own global standing at the United
Nations General Assembly this week, exposing the disagreements that have
often kept them from acting together.
The
king of Jordan cast himself as a staunch American ally and said Jordan
would propose a Security Council resolution to make attacks on religious
communities a crime against humanity.
Bahrain highlighted the problem of illicit financing for extremist groups from the region, in a clear dig at its neighbor Qatar.
But
most of these countries stand together in supporting a leadership
change in Syria, which the United States says is not its goal. And that
stance from the United States has delighted pro-government Syrians.
“The
Syrian Army will certainly benefit from the American airstrikes,” the
unnamed diplomat told the pro-government Syrian newspaper Al Watan.
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