Sanat Valecha '16
As the conflict in the Middle East continues its descent into chaos, more and more actors emerge to complicate the already problematic situation for the international community. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s, ISIL, rapid expansion in the past several months adds a further layer of confusion for Western policymakers in determining their response to the situation. ISIL, a large, radical extremist group with origins tracing back to al-Qaeda, has come to control vast swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory. A US-led coalition, apprehensive about putting boots on the ground with memories of Iraq and Afghanistan still fresh, has responded with an aerial bombing campaign, coupled with fresh arms packages to allied groups fighting ISIL, such as the Kurdish peshmerga. However, the effectiveness of such measures is debatable.On Monday, October 13 US Secretary of State John Kerry announced at a conference in Cairo that saving Kobane, a rural Kurdish-controlled town on the Syria-Turkey border, from ISIL fighters that have besieged the city for weeks and displaced 200,000 inhabitants from the region, was not a definitive part of the US-led coalition’s strategy. Kerry stated the current strategy focuses more on Iraq. To the contrary, a Washington Post infographic reveals that 53 of the 54 coalition airstrikes in Syria between October 14 and 16 were concentrated on Kobane. Around the same period, strikes in Iraq have fallen considerably, although mostly due to bad weather according to Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby.The US-led coalition has reason to attempt to distance itself from its involvement in Kobane. On Monday, October 20 the US Air Force airdropped supplies and weapons intended for Kurdish peshmerga forces defending the town. Redur Xelil, a spokesman for the People’s Protection Units (YPG) confirmed the package’s delivery, but declined to detail its contents. The following day (October 21), reports emerged from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that ISIL had seized at least one and potentially more of caches intended for the YPG peshmerga forces. This facet of the allied coalition’s military actions in Syria has not proven effective.A group of Syrian and regional academics, activists, and political analysts are critical of the international coalition’s airstrikes. According to Joseph Kechichian, Marwan Kabalan, and Haitham al Sibahi, not only is the bombing campaign unproductive in combating ISIL’s continued expansion, it is also distracting the coalition from its original goal of fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime. While the US has been conducting airstrikes against ISIL elsewhere in the country, the Assad government forces have gone back on the offensive with its own heavy bombing of rebel forces outside Aleppo and along the Syria-Jordan border.There does not appear to be a coherent international strategy in response to the convoluted situation in Syria. From arming moderate rebel groups to fight enemies on opposing sides of the conflict, to launching targeted bombing campaigns, little of the coalition’s response has improved the condition in Syria to the West’s favor. The US will have to reconsider its current methods as it continues to search for ways to undermine both ISIL and the Assad government and mediate the conflict in the Middle East.Sources:http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/fierce-fighting-rages-syria-kobane-20141019122812238305.htmlhttp://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/10/kerry-saving-kobane-not-part-strategy-2014101223481559892.htmlhttp://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2014/10/airstrikes-syria-help-hindrance-2014101213474655802.htmlhttp://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/10/21/ISIS-fighters-seize-weapons-airdrop-meant-for-Kurds.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/10/16/u-s-airstrikes-in-syria-are-now-dwarfing-those-in-iraq-thanks-to-the-fight-for-one-town/