More than two months have passed since the US-led coalition began its aerial campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. What impact the campaign is having, if any, is unclear. More than 1,000 raids have been waged on IS command centres, training camps, arms depots and oil facilities so far, say coalition sources. The attacks have slowed down or stopped the advance of the IS on some fronts, but they have failed to extract any substantial territory from the militant group. The IS, meanwhile, seems still to be capable of engaging a wide range of enemies simultaneously, including the Syrian opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA), the Kurds, Sunni tribal combatants and any regular Syrian army units standing in its way. Instead of turning tail, the IS seems to be holding its ground. Its leaders now claim that the coalition aerial bombardments are earning them sympathy among local inhabitants and bolstering their recruiting efforts. The trouble with the aerial campaign is that it lacks ground troops to back it up. Aerial bombardments, however accurate, will not be enough to defeat the IS, coalition commanders and military experts now admit. One aspect of the coalition campaign has been particularly disturbing. It has encouraged the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to offer its services as a potential ally with the US-led efforts. Noting the coalition's inability to achieve a decisive victory in the absence of ground troops, Al-Assad has said that his own ground troops, familiar with the lay of the land, would be able to provide help if asked. The same offer was made by the Syrian foreign minister. The Syrian opposition wants the coalition to rely on the FSA. According to the leader of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (NCSROF), an umbrella group, the US-led coalition is unlikely to achieve tangible results unless it engages the services of the FSA. The question of whose ground troops can do the job aside, it is clear that if the IS is to be defeated someone has to step in to fill the power vacuum. Both the regime and the opposition are vying for this role. However, the US-led coalition has so far refrained from offering either side this opportunity. The reticence on the coalition's part has caused many in Syria to suspect that Washington and its allies have no clear strategy for Syria. Abdel-Razeq Aslan Al-Laz, former head of the Syrian Police Academy, said that the “ambiguity” of the coalition's goals made it harder to speculate on the endgame in the Syrian conflict. Both the coalition and the IS “claim to be scoring victories, and each has powerful media behind it to propagate these claims,” he said. Speaking to the Weekly, Al-Laz said that the current confrontation between the IS and the coalition echoed the earlier one between Al-Qaeda and the US. An aerial campaign alone was not going to end the confrontation, he said. “The coalition cannot reach tangible results unless it dries up the source of terror [through] dismantling the ties between the Iranian and Syrian regimes,” Al-Laz added. The contradictions in the US approach to the IS have been evident even in US President Barack Obama's statements, which have indicated that the IS can be defeated in Iraq through combined action by the coalition and the Iraqi army. But in Syria the situation is more complex, and US officials seem to have been suggesting that they should keep on bombing the IS while somehow isolating the regime and then getting the moderate opposition to finish off both the IS and the regime. This is a scheme that few find practical. The US seems to be unable to decide whether it should be fighting the IS or the Al-Assad regime. It doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind whether it can rely on the Syrian armed opposition or not. While Washington weighs its options, the regime is gaining the upper hand. With the task of fighting the IS devolving to the US-led coalition, the regime is using its full force to batter the Syrian opposition and civilians in the hope of forcing them to accept a solution that will allow it to keep as much as possible of its current power. Syrian opposition figure Fawaz Tallo is disappointed with the US policy in Syria. “The US and the regime are sending their planes out on sorties every day, flying side-by-side in fantastical harmony. While American planes pound IS positions, the Syrian regime pulverises the revolutionaries,” he said. According to Tallo, the US intervention is weakening rather than strengthening the opposition. “The US bombardments are not helping the revolutionaries but are weakening them. The US-led coalition is striking at Al-Qaeda and IS while allowing the regime to step in and fill the vacuum.” Marah Biqaye, leader of the opposition Syrian Republican Party, is more optimistic about the coalition's intentions, saying that the US is merely postponing action against the Syrian regime until the IS is defeated. “Washington is convinced that Al-Assad shouldn't be part of Syria's future,” she said. However, many are concerned that even if the IS is vanquished, the question of who will fill the vacuum may create another layer of complications. It is still unclear who will run the massive areas that the IS controls today, for example. In Iraq, the Americans are working on the doubtful assumption that the Iraqi army will take full control of the land now under IS control. In Syria, the question is murkier, as the moderate opposition, which the Americans presumably back, may not be up to the task. The FSA is made up of units that are incoherent in background, disparate in ideology and difficult to bring under one command. Some Syrian opposition members now say that a solution would be for coalition forces to send in ground troops to control former IS-held regions until a political deal is reached. American politicians and public opinion will have difficulty accepting that, however, and many nations taking part in the coalition have made it a condition of their participation that no such action will be taken.
