On 15 October 2019, Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) made several comments during a Democratic presidential candidate debate, comments which called for an end to “US-led regime change wars in the Middle East”. A tacky attempt to weasel her way out of opposing wars in general, designating the war in Syria a “US regime change war” not only robs the Syrian people of their agency as individuals, it demonstrates a glaring lack of understanding of the conflict in general.
When protests broke out in Daraa, Syria, in March 2011, the United States was caught largely unprepared. With the uprising beginning at the tail end of America’s military withdrawal from Iraq, and after being elected on a platform of ending American wars overseas, Barack Obama had no stomach for toppling the Assad regime directly. One would expect Obama to immediately throw his support behind the Syrian uprising the moment it began if he were actually directing/supporting it. Considering the first call from Obama for Bashar al-Assad to step down came in August 2011, it is hard to reconcile with the image of the uprisings being American-sponsored from the get-go.
Beginning in late 2012, after over a year of sustained killing and suffering of the Syrian people at the hands of the Assad regime, and facing pressure from such leaders as King Abdullah II of Jordan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Obama relented and approved the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s Timber Sycamore program. This program, which saw select Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups receiving weapons up to and including BGM-71 TOW anti-tank guided missiles, was America’s most steadfast commitment to the removal of the Assad regime. Yet very quickly it became clear that, without either air cover or the ability to destroy aircraft regularly, the FSA groups would be steadily pressured from above until they were forced to retreat.
Furthermore, one must consider the entire system for supplying opposition groups in Syria under Timber Sycamore. As is often the case, America was caught in a region where it lacked a true understanding of the situation on the ground, and was thus forced to supply FSA groups via regional allies such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Unfortunately for America’s vision, the aforementioned three states do not exactly see eye-to-eye on regional issues. FSA groups, desperate for materials and weapons, would do their best to cozy up to one of the regional powers (in videos, printed materials, statements, etc). As the individual groups began to do the bidding of regional powers (rather than fighting together for the good of the Syrian people), they lost popular appeal. The idea that the Syrian civil opposition at any point after late-2012 was truly represented by the majority of the armed anti-government factions does not pass closer examination.
Gabbard often insinuates that the US supports Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda’s “former” affiliate in Syria). Unfortunately, once more the historical record defeats her simplistic, reductionist views of the war. After the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS/IS/Daesh) took control of large swaths of Syria in 2014, the US Department of Defense began a program, the Train and Equip Program, to prepare select, vetted groups of FSA fighters to fight Daesh. These fighters were made to sign a contract stating they would not fight the Assad regime. This contract proved incredibly unpopular among the fighters, resulting in a low overall number of graduates. When these graduates (around 150 of them) returned to Syria from their overseas training, they were rapidly hunted down and eliminated by none other than HTS. It is hard to see why the US would support HTS in killing forces the US had just trained.
Had the United States truly desired regime change in Syria, shipping Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) to the opposition would have likely made a considerable difference, and could potentially have tipped the scales in favor of the opposition. Alternately, had the United States actually been in it for regime change, it likely would have taken action following the August 2013 East Ghouta sarin attack, or any of the other myriad chemical weapons attacks that followed. Alas, it did not. Assad remained in power.
Tulsi Gabbard’s statements at the 15 October 2019 debate betray either a deliberate desire to mislead the voting public, or a distressing misunderstanding of the situation in Syria. Perhaps the answer is a mixture of both. Whatever the case, Tulsi Gabbard’s vision of the conflict in Syria seems to be one that exists only in her head and the heads of her followers.
