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Former Obama Official Slams White House Syria Policy

Hof: administration’s approach ‘a self-inflicted wound in the war against the Islamic State’

Syrian government officials walk on a road, back dropped, by damaged buildings from fighting with Free Syrian Army fighters in the old city of Homs, Syria
Syrian government officials walk on a road, back dropped, by damaged buildings from fighting with Free Syrian Army fighters in the old city of Homs, Syria / AP
August 24, 2015

Frederic Hof, a former senior adviser on Syria for the Obama administration, assailed the president in a recent op-ed for failing to address the civil war in that country and for indirectly fueling recruitment for the Islamic State terrorist group.

Hof writes in Foreign Policy that the administration has committed "a self-inflicted wound in the war against the Islamic State" by not doing more to arm nationalist rebels and challenge Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The Islamic State (IS), which evolved from the group al Qaeda in Iraq and now holds territory in both Iraq and Syria, filled the "vacuum in eastern Syria" created by "Assad’s atrocities and his lack of legitimacy," according to Hof.

Hof writes: 

Every barrel bomb dropped on defenseless civilians by regime helicopters is a recruiting gift to [IS leader Abu Bakr al-] Baghdadi, the head of a vicious criminal enterprise that combines the worst aspects of al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Baathism. Every Syrian child killed by barrel bombs or starved to death by regime sieges convinces others that if the "international community" can muster nothing but words, perhaps the self-styled caliph can offer protection. Eager to help rid its Syrian client of credible, nationalistic opponents, Iran consciously supports a program of mass murder that only gives Baghdadi power in Syria and in the Sunni Muslim world at large.

He adds that Assad has never fully targeted IS but viewed the group as an "enemy of choice":

The Islamic State became the Assad regime’s enemy of choice; an adversary that would supplement regime attacks on nationalist rebels, only engaging regime forces in combat when they sat atop something they wanted, such as an oil field, a military base replete with weapons stockpiles, or a town filled with priceless antiquities.

Additionally, Hof writes that the administration pursued a nuclear deal with Iran—the main regional sponsor of Assad—at the expense of serious efforts to end the suffering in Syria and dry up IS’ recruitment pool. The result is more disaffected Sunnis joining the ranks of IS, he argues:

Getting a legacy-boosting nuclear deal with Iran was everything for the Obama administration. Nothing should be done in Syria that would offend Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ support for Assad’s mass murder strategy. Offending them — or so the theory went — might cause Iran to walk away from the nuclear talks and forsake a monetary cornucopia in sanctions relief and foreign direct investment. […]

Iranian policies in Syria and Iraq have made vast swaths of both countries safe for jihadis. This is an awkward fact for the Obama administration: It now seeks, as part of its strategy to move forward with the nuclear deal it struck with Tehran, to convince Congress that it is not in fact blind to Iranian depredations in Syria and elsewhere in the region. Thus far, the convincing has been all talk, and that is why it is falling short.