Obama's New IS Strategy: Convert Syria to Iraq

Obama had promised a strategy on IS – formerly ISIS, which he conceded that the US did not have. He has now delivered one: more bombings, no American boots on the ground, the current policy of aligning with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and “moderate” rebels to continue for de-stabilising Syria further. All this supposedly to degrade and defeat IS. The US will help the “moderate” Syrian rebels through supply of arms and through air-strikes. We are back to the “moderate” Syrian rebel fairy tale, which has been discredited time and again.

The US and Saudi Arabia have announced that Saudis will host bases to “train” the moderate Syrian rebels. In other words, we have anti-Syrian government rebels that have been funded and supported by the most reactionary Gulf regimes, Qatar and Saudis, along with a Islamist Turkey who will be the key ally in the fight against IS in Syria. Arab-Turkish-US anti-terrorist meet in Jeddah endorsed this plan. This is despite the open knowledge that most of the weapons and those trained have joined the IS or Jabahat al Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

So the contours of the US policy are now clear – continue its support of its clients in Iraq – the Kurds in the north and the Iraqi regime headed by the new Iraqi PM, Haider al-Ibadi in Baghdad. With US airstrikes, turn the IS to attack Syria. In Syria, help those rebels who are US clients and are fighting the Assad government and IS. In other words, it is business as usual in strategic terms. The same axis – the US, Saudi, Gulf monarchies, Qatar and Turkey – that has brought disaster to the region over the last two decades, will continue with the same partners, with the same policies, adding only the US airforce to the mix. A failed US policy that has broken up Iraq, promoted civil war in Syria and handed over large parts of both countries to IS fundamentalists. And a continuation of its bankrupt alliance with Sunni extremism against the Hezbollah-Syria-Iran alliance.

Some quick international law issues. Without the sanction of the Syrian government, bombing any where in Syria is illegal. It is an act of war for which the US has absolutely no sanction – not even a fig leaf of a vague UN resolution. The arming and training of Syrian rebels in Saudi Arabia, is again an act of war – by both the US and Saudi Arabia. Till now, the training camps – in Qatar, Jordan and Turkey – have been covert. The bombings, arming of rebels and training them, are acts of war against the legal government of Syria. And open backing of “rebels” by the US and the NATO-Turkey and other pro-US Arab governments is operation regime change in Syria in the name of fighting IS.

It is open knowledge that the so-called moderate rebels have been allied to or defected to the IS and also the al Qaeda affiliate Jabahat al Nusra. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was just a facade built by the west to provide a conduit the Jabahat al Nusra and ISIS. The FSA has largely melted away with the arms and equipment provided by the US and its allies. For Saudis and Turkey, they never made a distinction, supporting IS and Jabahat al Nusra openly.

For those who know, the IS ideology is the same as that of Saudi Arabia's ruling family – a particularly reactionary interpretation of Islam. This is the brand of Islam that Saudi Arabia has been exporting all over the world with billions of dollars in “aid” to madrasas and religious trusts – from Philippines to Nigeria. This is the same jihad international formed under US and Saudi aegis to fight in Afghanistan that propelled Bin Laden to the world stage. The alliance of the US with the House of Saud is why we are seeing IS, Boko Haram, al Shabaab emerge across an arc of instability stretching from South East Asia to Africa.

It is not an accident that the west chose to align with Islamists – more reactionary the better. Their target was various forms of nationalism all of whom wanted to control their national economies. The Islamist forces in the Arab world – Muslim Brotherhood, initially supported by the Saudis – were also enemies of Arab nationalism of Nasser and the Bath in Iraq and Syria. This is the old axis of the cold war, Arab nationalism supported by the Soviet Union against the western powers in alliance with the Islamists. It is the same axis that is now the supposed bulwark against the IS.

The rise of IS and its capturing of a large part of Iraq could have led to a re-think of the US policies. It might have led them to think about a cautious detente with Iran and Syria, the two forces that are also under attack. This has not happened. Instead, we see more US sanctions on Iran and now a decision to continue the policies in Syria that is the cause of the bitter civil war there.

A failed policy on the ground cannot be made successful by aerial bombings. So why is Obama embarking on a path that can only lead to failure and a long term strengthening of forces such as IS? The only answer that appears credible is what Keynes had said about the economy – in the long term we are all dead. So all that matters is what happens today. The US goals are all short term; protect its key ally in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia; break-up countries that can be a threat to Israel, its other ally in the region; continue an air and drone war, with little loss of American lives. The long term destruction of the region matters little to it – as long as it serves the immediate interests of the US and its allies. This is the crux of the new Obama policy on IS. That is why Syria can join Iraq as another failed state in the region.

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