The Islamic State's Greatest Wish: U.S. Combat Forces in Syria

The Islamic State's Greatest Wish: U.S. Combat Forces in Syria

The presence of U.S. troops in Syria would be a morale boost for ISIS propagandists.

“The Defense Department might propose that the US send conventional ground combat forces into northern Syria for the first time to speed up the fight against ISIS,” CNN reported last week. No options have been formally presented to the National Security Council or President Trump for consideration, and there will certainly be more choices on the menu for the NSC staff to consider. But if the deployment of potentially sending several thousand U.S. conventional forces into Syria is truly an option that the Trump administration is considering, then it should think long and hard before signing the order.

The question is not whether to defeat the Islamic State in Raqqa, but how to do it. As the bedrock of the counter-ISIS campaign and the country that has sent most of the advisers on the ground and conducted most of the air strikes on ISIS targets (68 percent of the air strikes in Iraq and 95 percent in Syria have been dropped by U.S. aircraft), how Washington, DC decides to push ISIS out of Raqqa will be determinative of the coalition’s entire strategy in Syria.

This is why the United States needs to get it right. Speeding up the liberation of Raqqa by placing U.S. troops on the ground, bringing them closer to the frontlines, and perhaps doing some of the combat alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces, is not only unnecessary for the success of the operation, but a gift to ISIS propagandists who are struggling to keep the group’s morale from plummeting.

The offensive operation in Raqqa is likely to be a slow and grinding affair. ISIS has had years to buttress the city’s defenses, clampdown on collaborators who are feeding targeting information to U.S. pilots constantly flying above the city and debate about how best to make any liberation attempt by anti-ISIS local forces as difficult as possible. Although Syria and Iraq are indeed different terrain with different ethnic characteristics and different players involved, ISIS’s defense of Mosul against an estimated one hundred thousand pro-government forces demonstrates how hard the group is willing to fight to exact casualties on its enemies. It has been three months since the second phase of the battle for Mosul began, and Iraqi security forces are just now cleaning up the remnants of ISIS cells in the eastern half of the city—dirty and grueling work on top of the block-by-block, street-by-street fighting that Iraqi counterterrorism units have already performed to get where they are today. Hospitals in Iraqi Kurdistan are overworked, Iraqi army casualties are likely in the thousands, and entire sections of Mosul—a once proud cosmopolitan city—have been destroyed by ISIS suicide attacks and car bombings. The Islamic State, knowing full well that it doesn’t possess the strength, numbers and prowess to hold off Iraqi units for long, has instead chosen a strategy that makes any liberation of ISIS territory as painful and physically tolling as possible.

The battle in Syria could be even tougher, not because ISIS militants in the country are better fighters than their counterparts in Iraq, but rather due to the reality that the U.S.-led coalition doesn’t have a central government it is willing to partner with. In Iraq, the United States has Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi and one of the best counterterrorism and special forces units in the region. In Syria, America’s unwillingness to work with the Syrian army and Iranian-organized militias means that an assortment of local ethnic militias is the next best thing. Without ISIS as a common enemy, the Arab and Kurdish factions that have been synchronizing their operations ever closer to Raqqa would be on far shakier foundations. Ordering additional U.S. forces in the middle of this ethnic mosaic, while it would accelerate the operation, could just as quickly fray the bonds that have kept Kurdish and Arab fighters together.

The sooner ISIS is defeated in Raqqa, the sooner Syria’s Arabs and Kurds will be forced to grapple with the inevitable dispute about who will administer the city and keep the peace, which territories in the north will be ruled by the YPG and how ethnic minorities residing in a post-ISIS Raqqa will be protected. Ironically, holding off on a more aggressive U.S. presence in the fight for Raqqa will give factions within the SDF a little more time to discover that a post-ISIS federal structure that to date has been highly elusive.

In Raqqa, the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies perfectly. The combination of U.S. airpower and intelligence support in aid of local ground units has been effective for well over a year now. While ISIS’s caliphate in Syria is still a force to be reckoned with, the counter-ISIS campaign as its currently constructed is exerting a tremendous amount of economic and physical pressure on the organization. Since ISIS’s successful operation in Palmyra in early 2016, the amount of territory under ISIS’s control has contracted. What was once a wide open Syria–Turkey border that facilitated the provision of supplies, money and men—the lifeblood of an insurgent movement—is now virtually shut off thanks to increased Turkish cooperation and involvement. The two thousand foreign recruits who crossed into Syria every month is now an aberration; U.S. intelligence officials have estimated that ISIS’s shrinking caliphate is severely finishing its ability to attract reinforcements.

One need look no further than the Kurdish People’s Protection Units to see just how dramatic the battlefield dynamics have evolved over the past two years. In the fall of 2014, the Kurds were running out of ammunition, a few blocks away from being demolished in the city of border town of Kobane. Over two years later—in large measure due to U.S. air strikes, advisory support and ammunition drops—Kurdish fighters have retaken so much territory in northeast Syria that the Turkish government is increasingly concerned that Kurds may now establish their own state.

All of these successes, in short, have happened and continue to happen without a sizable conventional American ground force acting as the sharp end of the spear. The Kurds and Arabs in the SDF are doing what American troops were doing against Al Qaeda in Iraq a decade ago—going house-to-house and driving the terrorists into the desert.

The SDF is isolating Raqqa as we speak. Shaping operations are being conducted and ISIS supply lines are being cut off to the north and west of the city in preparation for the beginning of a frontal assault on multiple axes. Dozens of outplaying villages have already been retaken by the SDF on its way to Raqqa, and Pentagon officials have reported that senior officials in the terrorist group are beginning to withdraw in search of a new base of operations. ISIS is slowly, but consistently, being defeated and it is losing thousands of fighters along the way. And with each victory on the battlefield, the Kurdish YPG and the Arab component of the SDF are gaining a greater amount of self-confidence.

An infusion of U.S. troops at this stage in the war is therefore not necessary. The SDF is performing valiantly, and this force will continue to do so as long as it is provided with the airpower and weapons drops that it needs to maintain the pace.

Rather than reviewing an option that would place U.S. troops in harm’s way and discourage local fighters from continuing to defend their own areas, the Trump administration should instead devote more of its time managing the diplomatic juggling act that will encompass the liberation of Raqqa. U.S. officials should extract a promise from Kurdish elements in the SDF that, while they are more than welcome to participate in the retaking of the city, they will leave the administration, governance, policing and reconstruction tasks to their Arab colleagues. The Kurds cannot be allowed to negatively impact the majoritarian Arab demographic makeup of the city’s population—something that would splinter the anti-ISIS coalition and spark a violent ethnic conflict at a time when the terrorist group is still a major threat.

Given the understandable worry that Turkey possesses about Kurdish participating in Raqqa’s liberation, Washington must keep Ankara in the loop at all phases in the operation. An explicit promise from the YPG that it will withdraw from Raqqa as soon as ISIS is deposed from the area should at least calm nerves and give Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s some reassurance that Turkey’s national-security concerns will be taken into account during the military planning.

Debating the deployment of conventional U.S. forces into Syria is the wrong debate to be having. Planning for the day after and forming a mutual understanding between the Turks and the Kurds would be a much better use of the Trump administration’s time. The White House shouldn’t tamper with a plan that is slowly squeezing the oxygen out of the self-proclaimed caliphate.

Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.

Image: Marine looks through his M8541A optic. Flickr/U.S. Marine Corps