Syria: Too Little, Too Late

The Post reports: “The U.S. military is gradually expanding a new program to train and equip Syrian opposition fighters, but building a force that can effectively take on the Islamic State may take longer than expected, President Obama’s top military adviser said Wednesday. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the training course would be a success if the United States was able to recruit, vet and train enough fighters who will form the new, moderate Syrian rebel force. ‘That’s going to be a challenge and may take longer than we think,’ he said in an interview.” This is a problem entirely of the Obama administration’s making. It is a story of procrastination and willful blindness. 

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“When the Syrian civil war erupted, I recall speaking to some of the Syrian rebels seeking assistance from the United States. They were rebuffed then because the White House was concerned that the makeup of the rebels included some Islamists,” says Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “But it was clear then, as it is now, that there was more to the story. The White House simply did not see Syria as a conflict that was worthy of U.S. troops, let alone training or other assistance.” As many critics of the administration have argued, Schanzer says that “we can see quite clearly that there is as much danger in not doing anything as there is in doing too much.”

Now our options are poor and limited. “As for the training program, it is pretty safe to say that it will accomplish little. The numbers we are talking about here – 5,000 a year – will do nothing to erode the strength of the Islamic State or the Assad regime,” says Schanzer. “The move was described to me as a way for the administration to ‘tread water’ in Syria. To me, it looks like treading water while tethered to a cinder block.”

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Read the full article here.