The United States may have demonstrated it will protect Syrian fighters who complete its train-and-equip program, but analysts say that won’t make recruiting for the struggling program any easier.
American airstrikes came to the aid of a group of U.S.-trained Syrian forces on Friday when they were attacked by about 50 extremists, likely members of the al Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra, Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.
While U.S. has limited offensive strikes to just Islamic State targets, Friday’s air support demonstrates an American commitment to defend U.S.-trained Syrian fighters from “broader” threats, like al-Nusra or the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, under whom a civil war that has killed more than 200,000 has raged for years.
“The moderate opposition forces there continue to be attacked on multiple fronts. This includes from the Assad regime as well as violent extremists like al-Nusra front and ISIL,” Davis said.
“Our support to the [New Syrian Forces] could and will and in fact already has included defensive fire support when they are under attack,” he continued.
The U.S. has struggled to recruit Syrians for its train-and-equip program to fight the Islamic State. The Pentagon previously said it had hoped to train about 5,000 recruits by the end of this year, but has so far only graduated 60 from its program, sparking criticism from members of Congress.
Officials, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have said that Syrians are unwilling to join the program because it offered no protection to troops if they were attacked by extremists other than the Islamic State.
But the promise of protection from extremist groups is unlikely to bring in more recruits, analysts said.
Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said it’s “highly unlikely” strikes like Friday’s will be enough to overcome obstacles to recruitment.
“Strikes like the ones the U.S. took last week are insufficient to shift Jabhat al-Nusra’s calculus toward U.S. trained rebels, so it will be insufficient to convince U.S. trained forces that they will not be the subject of attacks in the future,” she said.
The larger problem is that Syrians would rather fight Assad, who they see as a larger threat than the Islamic State, and that many who are already fighting in rebel armies are unwilling to give up that chain of command for an American-led one, said Nick Heras, a Middle Eastern researcher at the Center for New American Security.
“They aren’t willing to subordinate themselves to a new chain of command,” he said. “A lot of the armed opposition groups want to keep fighting under their own command.”
McCain said Monday that the additional military support for Syrian forces is a step in the right direction, but criticized the administration for only extending protection to forces fighting in northern Syria, leaving forces in other parts of the country unprotected.
He also said that the “gradual escalation” of U.S. involvement in Syria will ultimately not make a difference in the broader fight against the Islamic State.
“I fear that this new incremental step, like previous ones, may only serve to deepen our military involvement in Syria without bringing us closer to achieving our objectives,” McCain said.
