Colleagues: The summaries of the presentations by GEN Shaefer and Mr. Morse drew considerable interest, so we decided to provide you with their fuller posts. Enjoy!
THE COMPLEX WARS AND
ARMED GROUPS IN SYRIA
-By Ted Morse
In analyzing the wars in Syria, it is useful to disaggregate them into three distinct but inter-related wars:
-The five-year POLITICAL war started like an extension of the “Arab Spring”. The 74% majority Sunni population is fighting the 13% minority Alawite authoritarian rule of Assad, to replace him with a more representative government. There are 228 “armed opposition groups”. Only a few see fighting the Sunni ISIL as a priority for them. The groups together number about 68,000 combatants, but are not a strong force. They do get support from the stronger Kurdish fighters and Arab militias that number about 58,000. They are fighting a weakened Assad regime of some 170,000 in over 200 uncoordinated armed groups. Assad is backed up by Iran on the ground and Russia in the air. A joint US-Russian Peace Process for Syria, backed by international and regional stakeholders, was put forward for Syria’s political war. ISIL was excluded from the cease-fire proposal.
-From the chaos of the political war a second war is being violently waged by ISIL, also to unseat Assad, but to replace him by a Caliph, governing by the strictest Sharia law interpretation of the Koran. ISIL terrorists and army have made alarming progress in and out of their Raqqa headquarters and in major Sunni provinces. Until lately, ISIL controlled two-thirds of Syria and major towns and routes across the wide desert connecting to ISIL conquered territory in Iraq. ISIL’s fighting strength is estimated at roughly 200,000 jihadists and coerced fighters, reinforced by as many as 20-30,000 foreign fighters from over 100 countries (according to UN estimates), including 150-200 from America. Fighting this war is inter-twined with destroying the Syria base of ISIL’s international war.
-A third war is waged internationally by ISIL using barbarian terrorist tactics in pursuit of establishing a caliphate from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Extensive social media recruitment and inspiration worldwide, training and support has resulted in gruesome terrorist attacks on almost every continent. The US has led a coalition of 64 countries to bomb, degrade and eventually defeat ISIL. Some territory containment has been achieved, especially with the help of aggressive Kurd ground troops, but has not slowed ISIL international terrorism. Multiple high profile killing of innocent civilians by ISIL and jihad followers, and fear of their fast and extensive growing international terrorism, has brought new European, Russian and Iran as well as Saudi commitment to wage a fuller war against ISIL. The 22,000 force of Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate, and the deadly bomb makers and trainers, the Khorasan group, underpin ISIL, along with experienced former Iraqi Baathists in its Syria based international terrorism.
War in Syria is highly complex. But disaggregated analysis does make it understandable and hopefully more solvable.
- Ted Morse is a retired foreign service officer with extensive experience in the Mid East.
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THE KEY FACTS THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JCS
NEEDS TO KNOW
REGARDING THE CONFLICTS IN THE MID-EAST
-By BG Joe Shaefer (USAF-Ret)
FOR TRAINING ONLY
FOR PRESENTATION TO CJCS GENERAL JOE DUNFORD
- There is no such nation as Syria or Iraq, not in the Western sense of shared values by the citizens. At the conclusion of WWI, in an effort to prevent the Ottoman Empire from ever rising again, the Western Powers drew artificial boundary lines that ensured that Christians, Muslims of differing catechisms, Jews, Kurds and Druze would squabble internally rather than band together.
- The instability this engendered helped create the civil war between Syrian President Bashear Assad and the rebels who oppose him; the Alawites (a Shiite sect,) who comprise 13% of the country but virtually all of its leadership, and the majority Sunni subjects. There are 3 wars in the Syrian AOR (Area of Responsibility) — one political and one religious, represented by these two, and extremist fundamentalist versus everyone else, represented by the Daesh caliphate against anyone that doesn’t share their apocalyptic vision.
- The conflict with Daesh is by far the most dangerous of these three and the one that has the highest probability of extending well beyond Syria’s borders — witness the well-planned murder of 129 people in Paris. As long as the Caliphate exists, promising a leader in the direct line of succession from Mohammed, no law but Sharia law, and a genuine Islamic “state,” a subset of Muslims will be attracted to it and willing to die for it.
- If only 2% of the world’s Muslims believe in the goals and the legitimacy of the Caliphate, that means 32 million potential emigres, citizens, recruits and fighters willing to die for the cause. If only 10% of that 2% are willing to fight and die, it would still mean 3.2 million potential recruits to the Caliphate or lone wolves in every country who can be directed to inflict continuing pain and suffering on non-believers. As a result of facts 1 & 2, without a sense of national or other group identity, Daesh can exert a powerful pull on those who imagine themselves in a war to defend God.
- 5. Delay is not an option. A good analogy might be WWII, which resulted from delay, negotiation, and wishful thinking against a force, Nazism, that was singlemindedly focused on destruction of its enemies. Virulent ideological fascism then, and virulent theocratic fascism today, both have the same goal. Every day the Caliphate exists, every time Daesh successfully terrorizes and murders infidels who do not submit to the will of their God, it proves to a certain subset of Muslims that the time is now to destroy such unGodly institutions as liberal democracy and the rule of law made by men — and who are willing to die for the glory of the dream of worldwide Islam living under worldwide Sharia law.
- GEN Joe Shaefer is a retired Brigadier General with combat experience as well as advisory and intel roles in the Mid East.