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A rebel fighter fires heavy artillery during clashes with government forces and pro-regime shabiha militiamen in the outskirts of Syria's northwestern Idlib province on Sept. 18, 2015.(Photo: Omar Haj Kadour, AFP/Getty Images)
The Pentagon’s overhaul of its troubled program to support a Syrian rebel force is the latest setback in the Obama administration’s ongoing struggle<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to establish reliable ground forces to fight the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
From the beginning<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of its campaign against the radical<span style="color: Red;">*</span>group more than a year ago,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the U.S. military has said that airstrikes alone will not defeat the militants, who have ambitions of ruling the entire Middle East.
President Obama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>has refused to send U.S. ground forces, so finding other<span style="color: Red;">*</span>reliable boots on the ground has been essential — but so far<span style="color: Red;">*</span>elusive.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>In Iraq, the country’s U.S.-backed armed forces have been reluctant warriors. In Syria, the Pentagon’s $500-million plan to field a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>force of "moderate" fighters to combat the Islamic State, also known as ISIL,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>barely got off the ground.
"I remain convinced that a lasting defeat of ISIL in Syria will depend in part on the success of local, motivated<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and capable ground forces," Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Friday, in announcing a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"pause" in the Syrian training program.
Finding forces to take the fight to the Islamic State is hampered by what potential allies in the region see as<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a confused U.S.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>strategy and lack of commitment to defeat the militants, analysts said.
“They’re not going to commit because we haven’t committed,” said Michael Barbero, a retired Army lieutenant general who served three tours in Iraq. “Our policy is so muddled.”
Barbero said there are ways to bolster support for ground forces short of committing U.S. ground<span style="color: Red;">*</span>troops, such as sending arms directly<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Syrian and Iraqi<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Kurds, who have proven to be fierce fighters, and boosting the number of U.S. advisers in the region.
Until it was suspended Friday,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the Pentagon program<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>got underway this year aimed to train<span style="color: Red;">*</span>5,400 rebels annually. Yet<span style="color: Red;">*</span>only a handful made it into Syria —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>with bad results.
Soon after returning to Syria, the first group was attacked by an al-Qaeda affiliate<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and dispersed.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>A second group that had just entered Syria from Turkey turned over U.S.-supplied ammunition and vehicles to the same group in return for "safe passage" through their territory.
Obama has blamed the program's lack of success partly on the failure to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>find<span style="color: Red;">*</span>opposition forces who would agree to fight the Islamic State instead of the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has been fighting a 4-year-old civil war. Obama has called for Assad to step down but has not wanted to take military steps to force his<span style="color: Red;">*</span>ouster and risk bogging<span style="color: Red;">*</span>down U.S. forces in the civil war.
The Pentagon said it would redirect remaining money from the training program<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>provide weapons and equipment to rebels already fighting the Islamic State, particularly around the militants’ de facto capital, Raqqa.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The leaders of those groups will<span style="color: Red;">*</span>be vetted and trained by U.S.-led coalition advisers in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>hopes of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>better coordinating<span style="color: Red;">*</span>airstrikes with those ground forces.
The Pentagon has worked<span style="color: Red;">*</span>with some of these groups for months and has confidence in their abilities, said Christine Wormuth, a Pentagon official.
In particular, the Pentagon has identified several thousand Arab fighters in northern Syria who have been fighting the Islamic State and have the potential to place pressure on Raqqa.
The administration said it has<span style="color: Red;">*</span>drawn on lessons learned from Syrian Kurdish forces that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>drove the Islamic State from Kobani, a town along the Syrian border with Turkey, with the help of coalition airstrikes.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“That’s exactly the kind of example that we would like to pursue with other groups in other parts of Syria going forward,” Carter said.
In Iraq, the U.S. strategy is also facing problems. More than 3,000 U.S. troops are on the ground there, including several hundred trainers<span style="color: Red;">*</span>working with Iraq’s armed forces and Sunni tribal fighters in western Iraq.
But an offensive to retake Ramadi, a key Sunni city captured by Islamic State militants earlier this year, has dragged on for months despite the overwhelming advantage in numbers enjoyed by Iraqi government forces.
Russia's recent military escalation in Syria has added a new<span style="color: Red;">*</span>complication to U.S. policy there.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Russia began airstrikes against forces opposing Assad, and that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>could hamper U.S. efforts to recruit fighters because<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Pentagon has not explicitly said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>it would protect U.S.-backed rebels from the Russian airstrikes.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said the failure to protect rebels<span style="color: Red;">*</span>from Russian bombs was "immoral" and could help "doom this new effort to the same failure as the previous one."
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