MESOP TODAYS COMMENTARY: OBAMA AND MIDDLE EAST ? – NO – NO HOPE – NO FUTURE!

Fight to Save Iraq From Islamic State, Via Syria

By Greg Sheridan – THE AUSTRALIAN  – 29 Aug 2015 – The US, as Barack Obama until quite recently was wont to freely admit, has no discernible strategy for the Middle East, either for the region as a whole or for Iraq and Syria specifically. It has some strategic intent. But intent is not strategy. It wishes, Kumbaya-like, that the folks in the region would just get along. And it is taking some actions, specifically bombing targets associated with Islamic State, or Daesh, as it is sometimes known.It wants the government in Iraq to maintain itself and gradually win back some of the territory it has lost to Islamic State. But it has no broad strategy for achieving any objectives in Syria and precious little for the rest of the region. Nonetheless, Obama has asked Tony Abbott to expand Australia’s efforts to include direct bombing of targets in Syria.

The Abbott government is going to agree to this. And despite the hopelessness of US strategic leadership at the moment it is, on balance, right to do so.

The Defence Department has not yet quite finished framing the formal policy advice that Defence Minister Kevin Andrews will take to the national security committee of cabinet. The NSC normally meets on a Tuesday, but next Tuesday Andrews will be overseas so the NSC meeting of Tuesday September 8 is most likely to be the date when the government formally commits to bombing missions. Although the Prime Minister is forward leaning on this and wants to contribute to degrading and destroying Islamic State, the government is not rushing.

The formal advice needs to cover the legality of the proposed strikes, the rules of engagement, the selection of targets, the implications for allied relations and several contingency plans, such as what to do if an Australian pilot is downed in Syria.

Abbott’s willingness to strike in Syria now may be contrasted with his reluctance when first elected Prime Minister, when he famously, and accurately, said the conflict in Syria was not so much one of “goodies versus baddies” but “baddies versus baddies”. The harassed and terrified civilian population of Syria are in no sense baddies. But the US effort to create a fighting force on the ground, which is Sunni, Arab and moderate, has yielded pitiful results.

With the exception of the Kurds, most of the groups fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime are extremists of one stripe or another. Islamic State is the worst, but most of the others are not groups that could conscientiously be supported. So why is Abbott right to agree to the US request for Australian missions in Syria?

There is a clue in part in the formal letter from US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter to the Abbott government asking for Australian bombing missions.

This letter said almost nothing about the politics of Syria and ­focused instead on the need to strike Islamic State bases in Syria to protect the people of Iraq, the sovereignty of Iraq and the control of the Iraqi government of its own territory and population.It is certainly the case, as Gareth Evans has argued, that there is a moral imperative in preventing Islamic State from conducting atrocities against innocent civilian populations. This can be justified, if you like, under the UN doctrine of the responsibility to protect. That former Labor foreign ministers Evans and Bob Carr both support carefully targeted strikes in Syria will make it difficult if not impossible for Bill Shorten to oppose them, although inevitably there will be some serious angst about this on Labor’s Left.

The legal justification for the strikes comes from the right to collective defence. Australia and other allied nations such as the US are in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help defend Iraq against Islamic State attack.

The supply lines and command and control centres of Islamic State, used to attack targets in Iraq, are themselves located in Syria. And they are in a part of Syria over which the Syrian government has no control. Therefore, Iraq and its ­allies are entitled to strike at such Islamic State targets in Syria for the purpose of defending Iraq.

In terms of military effect, this is entirely consistent with what Australia is doing already in Iraq. We have also for some time been providing direct support to allied missions in Syria. We have done this with aircraft flying in northern Iraq. The Australian aircraft have not themselves flown into Syrian airspace.But in northern Iraq, our air-to-air refuellers have supplied ­allied aircraft heading for missions in Syria. And our Wedgetail command and control aircraft has provided, from northern Iraq, operational guidance for allied planes flying to missions in Syria.

There are also Australian soldiers embedded in the unmanned operations command in the US that controls drones in Syria.So all of these existing Australian military efforts are about securing military effects through military strikes in Syria.Beyond these assets we also have six classic Hornets in Iraq flying bombing missions. They will be rotated out in a month or so and be replaced by Super Hornets. There are 170-odd Australian special forces training Iraqi special forces in Baghdad and about 300 Australians, along with 100 or so New Zealanders, based at Camp Taji, about 30km north of Baghdad, involved in training Iraqi conventional forces.

The question of whether the Iraqi troops will ever fight effectively in the field is a vexed one. The Iraqi Army was an effective force in the past. It fell away under the prime ministership of Nouri al-Maliki who intentionally ran it down. It became a “shadow army” and much of its resources were misappropriated. All reports are that it is improving now, though this remains to be seen.

The two strongest Iraqi forces fighting Islamic State are the Kurds and the Shia militia effectively led by Iran. Some of these militia are based at the vast military camp at Taji. This is one reason Australia had to be so punctilious about informing Iran of exactly what our soldiers were doing and why. It would have been absurd for the Abbott government not to engage in this dialogue with the Iranians, to make sure there was no accidental or needless conflict or incident between Iranian-led forces and the Australians.However, none of this leads to any broader rapprochement between Iran and Australia. Australia for the moment maintains its autonomous sanctions against Iran. Iran remains a state sponsor of terrorism, especially though Hezbollah and Hamas. One of its most senior officials only a few days ago renewed the call for the annihilation of Israel.There is no new formal agreement for intelligence-sharing between Australia and Iran. Ad hoc intelligence sharing, focused on terrorists, has been going on for years. There is no advance on this old and pre-existing situation.

And there is absolutely nothing in Iranian politics to suggest any basis for a closer relationship with Australia. Any closer relationship would bring attendant dangers.

Nonetheless, extending Australia’s combat role into Syria does again require consultation with Iran. The Iranians are still supporting the Assad regime, which Australia does not recognise.The Iranians have clear enough strategic objectives in Syria and Iraq. They want to see Islamic State defeated but they do not want the Assad regime to fall. And they seem to want Iraq to remain a relatively weak buffer state, subservient to them and dominated by its Shi’ite majority.

Because of its appalling human rights violations, the Assad regime is unpopular with Western governments. However, even the Americans, deep in the fog of their strategic confusion, seem to be coming to an agonising reappraisal of the sense of destroying the Assad regime without having any idea of what would replace it.

Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi deserved to be overthrown but Libya is now a lawless mess of conflicting warlords, jihadism and weapons trading. It is also the source of a huge outflow of people seeking to live in Europe.

All of this complexity means the government is right to stress the limits of its ambitions for any action it takes in Syria. Australian action in Syria is not about toppling Assad. It is not about sorting out the political future of Syria. It is solely concerned with contributing to the destruction of Islamic State. And Canberra recognises that the effects of its additional contribution will be incremental, not decisive. http://www.theaustralian.com.au