Syria troop decision

Obama's Syria troop decision widens partisan gulf

The reactions make clear the widespread dissatisfaction with the U.S. strategy in Syria.

By Austin Wright and Leigh Munsil

President Barack Obama's decision to send several dozen special operations troops to advise rebels in northern Syria and to "thicken" the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State made nobody happy on Capitol Hill — the latest evidence that there may be even less of a consensus than before over how to deal with the four-year-old crisis.

Members of Congress reacted to Friday's announcement with a litany of complaints, with some Democrats raising concerns about what one called "escalating mission creep" and Republicans complaining the stepped-up action is too little.

The reactions made clear the widespread dissatisfaction with the U.S. strategy in Syria — but also showed there's little consensus on Capitol Hill on how the country should deal with a crisis that's grown increasingly complex — especially in the wake of Russian air strikes to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assad that could potentially put the U.S. forces in greater danger.

That lack of agreement in Congress on what to do is severely hampering Obama's ability to craft a more effective strategy, in the view of Robert Ford, who was ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014 and is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

“The fact that he doesn’t enjoy support in Congress adds to his decision to be cautious," Ford told POLITICO. “The president views getting deeply involved in these civil wars to require more politics consensus. The Congress is asking the president to stick his neck out and do something while they do nothing.”

There has been an underlying frustration among members in both parties that more than a year into U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Syria there has been no formal congressional authorization.

Obama proposed a so-called Authorization for the Use of Military Force to confront ISIL in February, but congressional leaders have not been able to agree on language and have effectively scrapped any attempt to exercise the legislative branch's war-making responsibilities.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Friday's decision, more than a year after the United States starting bombing ISIL targets in Iraq and Syria and deployed some 3,500 military advisers to Iraq, cries out for a full congressional debate.

"It is time for Congress to do its most solemn job," said the member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

He said Obama also must explain what the endgame of any action in the Middle East would be — “to detail to the America people a comprehensive strategy to bring both the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, which are metastasizing around the globe, to a peaceful end."

But the reaction to Obama's decision mostly highlighted the gulf about what the U.S. role should be in confronting the Islamic State, which now controls large parts of both Iraq and Syria and is enlisting followers on several other continents.

The special forces — fewer than 50 — will fulfill a strictly advisory role, including assisting allied fighters on how to defend against improvised explosive devices by the Islamic State and to identify ways to breach ISIL-held territory, a defense official told reporters at the Pentagon.

They will serve rotations inside Syria of less than 60 days at a time.

"They will be located at the quasi-headquarters element of the local forces in Syria, they will not be going out and doing joint operations with those forces," the official stressed, calling the move a first step as officials continue to reevaluate the need for a more special forces troops on the front lines.

"I'm not ruling it out, and I think today's announcements are a perfect example of how you shouldn't rule out anything," the official said. "We'll adjust once we get a better sense of who's on the ground, their capability and what's actually needed."

Depending on who was weighing in Friday from Capitol Hill, Obama was either getting far too embroiled in the conflict or not embroiled enough.

The deployment of special forces could put "the United States on a potentially dangerous downward slope into a civil war with no end in sight," warned Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

But just as loud as the voices calling for restraint were those who believe the Obama administration has dithered too long in Syria and the latest decision will make little difference militarily.

Republican defense hawks complained that the White House’s announcement was too little, too late — illustrating the sharp rift in Congress that has prevented the passage of a resolution to authorize the war against ISIL.

“A more serious effort against ISIS in Syria is long overdue,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas). “I do not see a strategy for success.”

“Rather,” he added, “it seems the administration is trying to avoid a disaster while the president runs out the clock.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the White House’s “limited action” was “yet another insufficient step in the Obama administration’s policy of gradual escalation.”

“Such grudging incrementalism is woefully inadequate to the scale of the challenge we face — Syrian and Iraqi civilians are dying on the battlefield every day, hundreds of thousands of refugees are flooding into Europe, the erosion of America’s credibility is accelerating, and America’s foes are rapidly destabilizing the rules-based international order,” McCain said. “Despite today’s announcement, there is still no compelling reason to believe that anything we are currently doing will be sufficient to achieve the president’s stated goal of degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL.”

The concerns on both sides of the Syria divide are driven by the increasingly complicated nature of the conflict.

The stepped up U.S. military effort, which also includes dispatching more F-15 fighter jets to Turkey, comes at a time when the skies are already crowded with Russia's decision in late September to launch air strikes at some of the same groups the U.S. is supporting.

"The Russians coming in obviously complicated the already complicated situation that exists in Syria," the defense official said.

The U.S. has not told Russia where it plans to put less than 50 special operations forces on the ground in Syria, and the official said the U.S. doesn't feel the need to give Russia that information.

"To be honest with you, the area where we're planning to place these [special operations forces] is not an area that they have struck, nor would they need to strike," the official said. "It's not ISIL and it's not regime-controlled, so we don't anticipate any problems."

The U.S. hasn't changed the scope or scale of counter-ISIL efforts in Syria since Russia started its strikes, the official stressed. U.S. officials don't have any current plans to communicate with Russia about the special operations forces. However, they would be open to it to ensure the safety of U.S. troops on the ground, the official added.

"We have created safety procedures with them, and we have made clear to them in multiple avenues that we expect them to keep a significant and safe distance away from us," the official said. "They are keenly aware of what happens, as we are, over the skies of Syria, and coming in and out of Syria, and we expect them to maintain a safe and responsible distance."

But the question remains of what the end game for U.S. strategy looks like — and many believe it can only be answered with a much more forceful debate in the halls of Congress.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who sits on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that has major influence over the Pentagon’s war budget, said the new deployment "marks a major shift in U.S. policy — a shift that is occurring without congressional debate."

He said the move "is unlikely to succeed in achieving our objective of defeating ISIL," though he fears it will nonetheless draw the United States deeper into the conflict.

"We cannot reasonably expect that the deployment of Special Operations Forces would be limited in scope or duration," Schatz said.

The lack of congressional consensus “probably does send a message to other states in the region, as well as the Russians," added Ford, the former U.S. ambassador, said in an interview. “It gives the impression of indecisiveness.”

“That’s why it would be extremely useful for Congress to vote for an authorization.”