As the row over David Cameron saying that the Joint Intelligence Committee estimate there to be 70,000 potential anti-Islamic State fighters in Syria showed, the big question mark about the West’s anti-IS strategy is who will provide the ground troops for it. The Kurds will only fight in their own area and so far, there is little sign of a credible Sunni force emerging to take on Islamic State. While working with Assad has its own drawbacks. (In many ways, the existence of IS–albeit, in weakened form–suits his interests.)
David Ignatius details just how wrong US efforts to train up Sunni fighters have gone in the past year in Washington Post:
In Iraq, U.S. trainers were dispatched to Al Asad and Al Taqaddum air bases in Anbar province to train thousands of Sunni tribal fighters. The tribesmen mostly didn’t show up, and no wonder: The Shiite-led government in Baghdad still refuses to approve a Sunni “national guard” with real power. In Syria, Congress authorized a $500 million plan to train and equip a largely Sunni force to fight the Islamic State. Only a few hundred signed up, instead of the expected 5,000, and the first wave of fighters walked into a trap and was savaged by jihadists in northern Syria.
Without a Sunni force to take the fight to Islamic State, there will be limitations as to what can be achieved. The big challenge now is how to persuade a moderate Sunni force into the field. The promise of some form of federal structure for Syria might be one way of doing that.
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