WASHINGTON: After more than two months of air strikes, a US-led coalition has prevented the fall of a northern Syrian town to Islamic State jihadists but is still struggling to halt the group’s advances on other fronts, experts say.
Since the air war on the IS militants began on August 8, the United States and its allies have few concrete successes to point to as the IS group has continued to roll ahead in western Iraq and tighten its grip elsewhere.
But US officials insist it is too early to draw conclusions, and that a methodical effort will eventually bear fruit, as Iraqi and Kurdish forces build in strength.
“We’re in the first couple of minutes of the ball game,” said one senior officer at US Central Command, which oversees the air campaign.
Senior US administration officials and military commanders acknowledged in recent days the Iraqi army is months away from any sustained counter-offensive that could roll back the IS from its strongholds in Iraq’s western and northern provinces.
And despite ambitious plans for Iraq’s Sunni tribes to join the fight, most of the tribal leaders are sitting on the fence, waiting to see if the new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi will break with the sectarian politics of his predecessor, officials said.
In the Syrian border town of Kobane, US officials are cautiously optimistic that Kurdish fighters – backed by US air raids – have fended off a relentless push by the IS militants to seize control of the area.
By keeping the town from falling – at least for the moment – the Americans avoided handing the IS a potential propaganda coup in a battle that has drawn intense media attention.
But the fight remains a stalemate and the Kurds’ desperate appeals for help – and Turkey’s cool response – have highlighted the deep divisions that plague the anti-IS coalition, experts said.
The US strategy’s goals “cannot be realised because the interests of the different partners are diametrically opposed,” said French General Vincent Desportes, professor of strategy at Sciences-PO in Paris.
The fragile coalition offers a contrast to the 1991 Gulf War, when the United States was able to forge common ground with Arab and European allies, he said.
“In 1991 something was achieved because the Americans succeeded in aligning with the Gulf States,” he told AFP.
Turkey’s role has been a constant source of tension. And the United States has underestimated Ankara’s determination to avoid any action that would empower the Kurds, analysts say.
At the same time, Turkey and Arab governments are frustrated with Washington’s reluctance to directly confront the Syrian regime.-- AFP