No such thing as “U.S.-backed” Syrian Rebels

(2012) Syrian Rebels Get Missiles. Wall Street journal, Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443684104578062842929673074

Rebels and regional officials report that some Syrian rebel groups have procured advanced portable antiaircraft weapons.  According to Syrian rebels and officials associated with an operations room coordinated by regional governments that supplies some rebels with arms, Manpads have been smuggled into the Syria over the past two months through Turkey and Lebanon.  However, these Manpad transfers were not authorized by regional that have been supplying groups rebels with arms since early 2012, according to a Syrian involved in arranging weapons procurement from regional governments.  The U.S. opposes the procurement and use of Manpads in Syria, justifying this stance by claiming that these weapons could wind up in the possession of anti-western militias that could use them against the U.S. and its allies, or sell them to terrorists.  Since Spring 2012, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have been delivering weapons and money to rebel groups in Syria, but U.S. officials believe that heavy weapons are being obtained through private smuggling networks.  Indeed, rebel coordinators say that the majority of the shoulder-fired missiles originate from Libya and are smuggled through via the Turkish border without authorization from regional and western governments.  Others are, in fact, Russian made Strela systems supplied by Palestinian armed groups.  Syrian military defectors say they have even purchased some SA-7s from Assad’s forces.  It is not know how many anti-aircraft weapons have entered Syria, although U.S. officials estimate that the number is very few.  As the weapons began to flow over Turkey’s Southern border in early 2012 through the joint operations room established by Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon and CIA intervened.  In July, the U.S.prevented the delivery of at least 18 Manpads originating from Libya at a time when the rebels were begging for more effective anti-aircraft weapons to battle regime airstrikes.  A rebel representative involved in the transaction said that the U.S. told the rebels that they needed to get their “house in order on the ground.”  Now I realize that this article is quite dated, but it nonetheless speaks to the falsity of the “anti-imperialist” narrative that the various brigades of the Free Syrian Army are CIA-backed American proxies.  This article makes clear that, beginning in Spring 2012, the United States intervened on Turkey’s southern border to stop the delivery of anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels, and that the the Manpad transfers were not authorized by either the U.S. government or their regional allies.  Why would the U.S. prevent its supposed proxies from obtaining heavy anti-aircraft weaponry that they could use to shoot down regime aircraft and gain a decisive strategic advantage against Assad?  The official’s comment that the U.S. worried about these weapons getting into the hands of terrorists is simply not believable.  In fact, as I will demonstrate in future references, the US policy of restricting arms flows to non-Islamist rebels has actually ended up bolstering the profile and influence of Islamist rebels over the course of the war. However, the first half of that comment in which the official indicates the Obama administration’s reservations about the weapons falling into the hands of “anti-western militias that could eventually use them against the U.S. and its allies,” that is more believable.  Understand that the U.S. does not favor the overthrow of Assadism in Syria. Any new government must be as amenable to U.S. imperial interests as Assad, whether that government is secular or Islamist in character or a combination of the two.  A non-Islamist rebel group can be just as “anti-western” as any Islamist outfit, and indeed at this point, many are given the Obama administration’s enabling of the Russian-backed Assadist slaughter currently taking place in Aleppo.  Rest assured that eventually Assad will be deposed from power not because the U.S. wants him gone but because the Syrian people have been demanding his ouster for the past five and a half years.  The writing has been on the wall for a long time.  It’s just the case that world powers have conspired to delay Assad’s departure while conditions on the ground remain unfavorable to getting the replacement client regime all of them so deeply desire.  The Obama administration intervened in Syria not to oust Assad but to try to shape the character of the opposition that it knows will eventually replace him.  What it has discovered, however, is that there are very few rebel groups in Syria willing to act as American proxies and sabotage the Syrian people’s right to self-determination.  At the same time, the U.S. could not allow these “anti-western” moderate militias to be eliminated because that would increase support for Sunni Jihadists among Syria’s Sunni population, so the Obama administration permits regional governments to deliver light arms to rebel groups while it provides them with communications hardware and logistical aid, ya know because a rifle and a radio are a big help against helicopter gunships and fighter jets.  For the duration of the war, the United States has embarked on a careful balancing act between the rebels and the Assad regime.  More on the substance of this balancing act and the refusal of rebel groups to act as American proxies in future references.