Toppling Assad is a giant step toward squashing ISIS

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After Syria’s alleged chemical weapons strike on Khan Shaykhun and subsequent U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base, the Trump administration has offered conflicting messages about their ultimate goal in Syria. Speaking to ABC News, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that beyond enforcing a redline on chemical weapons use, “there is no change to our military posture.”

However, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN, “There’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime.” As for Donald Trump, he has been all over the map. After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons in 2013, Trump tweeted, “President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside.” But, he acknowledged after the latest attack, “My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.” So, must Assad go? Yes, but not simply because of the chemical weapons — after all, the Islamic State has also used them and other Syrian rebels may have as well. Rather, Assad must go because he is an impediment rather than an asset in the defeat of the Islamic State. First, the basics: Assad can deliver neither security nor stability. Protests erupted in Syria because of Assad’s mismanagement and spread because of his ham-fisted response. Consider the case of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb: Security forces arrested the 13-year-old and, weeks later, returned his mutilated body to his parents. Rather than bury their son, they allowed Arabic satellite stations to film his corpse.

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The episode was for Syria what the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till was for the United States: A point of no return. To tell Syrians to remain under Assad’s thumb would be analogous to telling American civil rights leaders to get over Till’s lynching. Formulas which sound convincing in boardrooms seldom translate into reality on the ground. Nor does Assad necessarily want to defeat the Islamic State. Prior to U.S. air operations over Syria in August 2014, the only Assad’s air force was operating over Syria yet it did not once bomb the Islamic State capital city of Raqqa. The reason is simple: Assad wants a binary choice: Syrians either support him or fall to Islamic State extremism. As far as Assad is concerned, the greatest threat to his survival is any politician or group seen as competent and more moderate. Assad’s tolerance for the Islamic State is no outlier. He may be secular but he is no secularist.

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During the U.S. occupation of Iraq, captured documents showed that the underground jihadist railroad into Iraq ran through Syria. Not only were Assad and senior Baath Party members aware of the flow, but they often took money to facilitate it. What Syria subsequently experienced was simply backlash. So what is the solution? Isn’t the devil we know better than the unknown? Years of fighting and abandonment have radicalized any remaining moderates who, at any rate, have shown themselves no more capable of stabilizing Syria than Assad. Fighting may be intense around Idlib and Homs, but parts of Syria are calm and rebuilding. Girls walk to school and municipalities provide water, electricity, and even pick up trash in Syrian Kurdistan. Along the Mediterranean coast where Assad’s forces conducted ethnic cleansing, life for those remaining has returned to normal. Syrian Airlines still flies between cities. Rather than engage in grand plans, world leaders should recognize Syria for what it has become: a collection of loosely-linked federal cantons, and work to eliminate the terrorists in between. As for Assad, even the Kremlin has stated that Russia’s support is not unconditional. That provides an opportunity for a swap at the top. With Assad gone, any new face, even one from his inner circle, opens the door to new possibilities.