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Syrian rebels with ties to al-Qaida are crediting a recent military victory to American missiles which were supposed to aid “moderate” forces fighting dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Anti-tank TOW missiles gave the rebels a vital edge in fighting in the Syrian city of Idlib and surrounding areas during the past six months.
“Nobody can deny the big effectiveness of the TOW missiles on the ground. These missiles are one of the main factors that led to the successes of the rebels,” former Syrian army colonel Ahmed Al Soud, who works with a battalion of the free Syrian army, told a pro-rebel news outlet.
On Sept. 9, a coalition of Islamic Jihadi groups led by the Al Nusra Front and calling itself the Army of Conquest, crowned themselves victorious and the rulers of the city. Al Nusra is al-Qaida’s official branch in Syria.

The Russian military intervention in Syria, and the creation of a new regional alliance which includes Iran and Iraq, removes one undesirable outcome from the complex equation. The collapse of the government in Damascus, and its replacement by some form of jihadist-dominated Sharia regime which would spell the end of the non-Sunni minorities (including Christians), is no longer on the cards.

It does not herald the advent of a new era of moderation and realism among the key players, however, which would lead to a political settlement in the near future. Even if Moscow and Washington could agree on the broad outline of a new political framework—from which the old upfront demand for Bashar al-Assad’s immediate ouster would be removed—it is doubtful that they could impose on their regional allies a blueprint which is at odds with their strategic ambitions. Those ambitions remain fundamentally incompatible.

In the “American” camp, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Oman would be loath to accept the end of their plan to turn Syria into a permanent Sunni Muslim wedge dividing what they see as a putative Shiite-dominated crescent extending from Iran across Iraq and Syria into northern Lebanon. For all of them the issue is eminently geopolitical, and it is not at all compatible with the stated primary U.S. objective of defeating ISIS (the rhetoric of removing “Assad’s murderous regime” notwithstanding). They do not care who does the stopping.

The Russian state-controlled propaganda machine has been working around the clock to promote the success of Russia’s aerial bombing campaign in Syria, which began on September 30, to a reluctant domestic public. According to the independent pollster Levada-Tsenter, the propaganda has been effective: Over 70 percent of the Russian population supports the bombing of Islamic State (IS—also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS) targets in Syria; and about half believe Russia must support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the IS and the Syrian opposition. At the same time, half of the Russian population fears Syria may turn into a “new Afghanistan”—a costly and deadly long-term commitment that may end in defeat and humiliation, like the Soviet Afghan invasion in the 1980s, which lasted almost ten years and is still remembered with dread (Interfax, October 8).

The Ministry of Defense’s (MoD) daily briefings in Moscow show footage of airstrikes, allegedly killing “ISIS terrorists” in droves and destroying their weapons and infrastructure. The Russian defense and foreign ministries have been adamantly denying as “information warfare” claims that Russian bombs are mostly hitting not the IS, but the Syrian opposition and the civilian population. Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called on the United States to use a channel of communication between the Pentagon and the Russian MoD to clarify reports of alleged attacks on the Syrian opposition and resolve disagreements, instead of going public and discussing differences in the press (Kommersant, October 6)