U.S. Will Let Syrian Rebels Call In Air Strikes, Just Not on the Army They’re Rebelling Against

The U.S. is giving a boost to whichever “moderate” rebels in Syria we feel deserve strong U.S. backing, the Wall Street Journal reports:

The U.S. has decided to provide pickup trucks equipped with mounted machine guns and radios for calling in U.S. airstrikes to some moderate Syrian rebels, seeking to replicate the success Kurdish forces, aided by American B-1B bombers, had over Islamic State last month.

The plan comes as the U.S. prepares to start training moderate rebels, who are waging a two-front fight against the extremists and Syrian regime forces. Defense officials said American trainers will be in place March 1 in Jordan, with a second site due to open soon after in Turkey.

The Obama administration has been facing growing pressure to step up support for the moderate Syrian rebels from Republican hawks in Congress and from some allies.

After that the U.S. will consider introducing what it is calling “the new Syrian force” onto the battlefield in Syria, officials said.The first training sessions are to last between six and eight weeks. The training will focus on helping the rebel forces hold territory and counter Islamic State fighters—not to take on the Syrian army.

A team of four to six rebels will each be given a Toyota Hi-Lux pickup, outfitted with a machine gun, communications gear and Global Positioning System trackers enabling them to call in airstrikes. The fighters will also be given mortars, but the administration hasn’t decided to provide the teams with more sophisticated antitank weapons.

The Central Intelligence Agency began a covert program to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels in 2013, providing ammunition, small arms and antitank weapons to small groups of trusted fighters. While that program continues, it is widely viewed as having fallen well short of its aims.

So we’re going to give the rebels we trust authority to provide targets for American bombs and missiles — but won’t trust them with aiming their own anti-tank missiles, as we did over the past couple years. The argument there, I suppose, is that unlike the previous round of U.S.-supplied anti-tank missiles, the ability to call in air strikes can’t fall into ISIS’s hands. (Although the equipment they use to communicate with the U.S. could . . .) Fair enough, finding rebels you trust is tough.

But it’s probably a good bit tougher when you don’t actually want to find real ”rebels” at all. U.S. air strikes can’t be called in against the Assad government that Syria’s opposition forces, well, oppose.

There’s nothing surprising about this, since the U.S. doesn’t want to go to war with Assad, for a number of reasons. But it goes to show how half-hearted our effort in Syria is and how unlikely it is to succeed. If you were a Syrian rebel, whether you hate ISIS and al-Nusrah Front or not, you likely put your life on the line in the first place to defeat Assad. Unless you get real help for that mission, why would you develop any loyalty to the U.S. at all, let alone enduring loyalty or affection? (The exception to this seems to be the Kurdish rebels, who are American-friendly and have air-strike authority but no U.S. weapons.)

This problem is compounded by the fact that even moderate rebels recognize that the most effective anti-Assad forces are the most ideologically extreme. In other words, the U.S. is taking your calls, but it’s also bombing some of your best allies. (And also maybe some civilians.)

I don’t envy the Obama administration’s position; there is no obvious, good strategy here. But how, again, is this one supposed to work?