The Syrian imbroglio: Why US,UK are angry at Russia

As the Russians have begun air strikes against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, a realisation has apparently dawned on a section of the US thinkers and policy makers that there is a need for both the US and Russia to what has been described as "de-conflict" their respective air operations inside that country. This has been confirmed by White House spokesperson Josh Earnest while briefing reporters in Washington.   
He said: "Both presidents (Obama and Putin) agreed that it was a priority for both countries that tactical, practical conversations between our militaries take place to ensure that our military activities inside Syria are properly de-conflicted."
This announcement has, in fact, preceded by official directives from US Defence Secretary Ash Carter to his staff to "open lines of communications with Russia" to de-conflict operations in Syria, Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook confirmed. This was needed, Cook informed newsmen, to ensure that the on-going US-led coalition airstrikes against the IS are not interrupted by Russian military activity and also to "avoid misjudgment and miscalculation."  
This was largely welcomed by all quarters until October 01 with the exception of Gulf monarchies which have been in close association with the US and some of its allies in the West in financing and arming the Syrian "moderate" rebels against President Bashir al-Assad's government. However, the successful bombing operations of the Russian aircrafts against the Islamic terrorist strongholds in Syria has seemingly angered the US and the UK, its closest ally in the West. President Obama and British Prime Minister Cameron began accusing Russia of "backing butcher Assad" and that "it is going to make the region more unstable, it will lead to further radicalisation and increase terrorism."        
Meanwhile, news agencies, quoting Russian Defence Ministry, reported that Russia's air force hit 12 targets in Syria from Wednesday to Thursday (September 30 to October 01), including command posts, local headquarters, ammunition depots and other facilities of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. Over 50 Russian air force aircrafts conducted altogether 20 sorties, 12 in the daytime and eight at night, destroying eight and four targets respectively, the ministry said.
   Igor Konashernkov, a defence ministry spokesperson informed reporters: "Deeply modernised Su-24M and Su-25 aircrafts equipped with the most advanced targeting system took part in the mission." All the strikes were coordinated with the Syrian army command, the ministry said. This was Russia's first major military engagement outside after the then Soviet Union's involvement in Afghanistan in 1979.
   Meanwhile, last Sunday (October 04) Iraq announced that it would begin sharing "security and intelligence" information with Russia, Syria and Iran to battle the Islamic State (IS). The decision came as a surprise to the US, as Iraq, with about 3,500 American advisors, trainers and other military personnel operating inside the country, is considered a vital member of the US-led coalition to combat the terrorist group.
The New York Times in a report suggested that this new deal was interpreted by Washington as another move by Russia to "expand its political and military influence in the Syria conflict and leave the US scrambling."
Knowledgeable circles suggest that Putin's decision to launch air strikes on Syria marks a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in a more than four-year-old civil war in which almost every country in the region has a stake. It has also aggravated Obama's domestic political problems as critics now blame his reluctance to get directly involved in Syria has prompted Moscow to take its biggest plunge in the Middle East.       
A Reuters report from Moscow on Sunday (October 04) said: "(T)he Russians have said they would step up airstrikes in Syria escalating its military intervention (launched on Wednesday, September 30) to weaken Islamic State militants, but which Western powers say aims to support President Bashar al-Assad."   
Obviously, therefore, the Russian strike in Syria against the IS has angered Washington and President Obama has bluntly accused Moscow of striking "moderate rebels" fighting against the embattled Syrian president "under cover of a claimed assault on ISIS militants". Obama warned that Moscow's aggressive military campaign in Syria was a "recipe for disaster."
Political analysts belonging to the 'alternate media' in the US openly say that the over four-year-old civil war in Syria is a foreign-sponsored conflict and since March 2011, well over 240,000 lives were lost. Author and political commentator from Missouri Dean Handerdson, who belongs to this group, believes that "the US and its Arab allies create the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and the ISL terrorist groups so that they could justify their meddling in Syria." It is an opinion held by the critics of the US government's policy decisions and one is free to accept or reject.   
Refuting Washington's allegations, Russian foreign minister told a press conference that Russian aircrafts made over 20 sorties (in the first two days, September 29-30) over nine IS infrastructure facilities, destroying a warehouse that stored ammunition in the mountains near the city of Jisr al Shughur Idlib province. SU-34 jets also targeted a training camp belonging to the Islamic State Group near the town of Maaret-al-Numan.  Russia has also rejected the claim that its aircrafts had deliberately bombed "moderate rebels" by saying that their aircrafts had hit IS and other Islamist terrorist groups who behave and act like terrorists.    
The White House, which has long blamed Bashar al-Assad for instability in Syria, insists that Assad must step aside. In July, President Barack Obama told reporters in Washington that the only way for the IS to be defeated was for Assad to leave power, a condition that Russia doesn't agree with. It says, the IS can be defeated with the help of the Syrian ground forces and strong support from the allies. Strategists, however, worry that the allies would run into each other for the sake of expanding influence in the region unless they become realist and follow pragmatist policy.
The rise and expansion of the IS, that has established de facto control over about  one-third of Iraq and Syria in a self-declared caliphate, is a logical consequence of the international community's lack of policies to deal with the conflict in Syria. To what extent the two anti-IS coalition can cooperate will depend on how much Russia and the US can bridge their divergences.
In a report quoting US intelligence agencies, the New York Times last week pointed out that about 30,000 militants from over 100 countries, including more than 250 Americans, have travelled to Syria and Iraq since 2011 and joined the ranks of the terrorist groups operating in the two countries. The Pentagon has claimed that the coalition airstrikes have killed about 10,000 Islamist terrorists but they keep on recruiting over 1,000 militants a month without having any visible impact.
Obama has many reasons to get angry at Putin. In addition to the airstrikes, the US is also running a programme to train the "moderate militants" at a cost of $500 million to operate against the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The Obama administration has already come under bitter criticism for running such an expensive programme to train and equip militants in Syria that has been described as "totally failure" and a "waste of American tax-payers' money."
Quite interestingly, after days of denials, the Pentagon revealed on September 30 that the so-called "moderate" militants trained by the US to fight the ISIL (also called Daesh) terrorist group in Syria had turned over some their supplies of weapons to an al-Qaeda-affiliated group. The US Central Command admitted that the so-called New Syrian Forces (NSF) surrendered their weapons to the al-Nusra Front in exchange for safe passage within the region, a startling acknowledgement that contrasted with earlier Pentagon denials.
While these claims and counter-claims were being raised by different groups, the beleaguered Syrian President Assad told an interviewer from Iranian television last week that Syria, Russia, Iran and Iraq were united in battling terrorism and were likely to succeed but warned that the cost of failure would be devastating for the Middle East. The four nations, he said, would achieve "practical results" unlike a US-led international coalition whose year-long campaign of air strikes against the IS militants in Syria and Iraq had seen an expansion of violence.
These are all conjectures and it would not be wise to reach a conclusion in haste. After all, the US-led coalition has not succeeded through its year-long airstrikes in making any visible dent in the IS militants' capacity of spreading violence across a large swathe of land in Syria and Iraq. Nobody is sure if the Russia-led attempt to bomb the IS militants' strongholds would become a success. Only time can tell the difference and therefore, one has to have a little patience.
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