French President Francoise Hollande will meet President Barack Obama in Washington this week and then travel to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin in an effort to draw Russia closer to the 65-nation coalition against the Islamic State, but U.S. continues to waver in its approach towards Russia. In the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, Russian and U.S. foreign ministers had stated that they would explore closer counterterrorism cooperation, but on the ground only incremental progress has been made.
The Russians and the coalition had established a communication channel days before Paris but the first consequential exchange happened after the terror strike, when the Russians informed the coalition of its plans to bomb Raqqa, the IS headquarters. The communication line is tested everyday, but “there is no coordination,” according to the U.S. military. “We're not conducting operations with the Russians, nor are we planning to do any of those things here at the ground level,” Col. Steve Warren of the coalition’s anti-IS ‘Operation Inherent Resolve’ told through a videoconference from Baghdad last week. In another first in the week gone by, the coalition destroyed 116 oil tankers operated by the IS, in an effort to disrupt its funding.
While Russia appears keen to be part of the coalition against the IS – which will also help it overcome its current status – the U.S. hesitation appears to be on two counts, despite the fact there is an agreement between the two countries on three common objectives, namely, defeat the IS, stabilise the region and kick start a political process in Syria. The disagreement comes on the sequencing of the objectives – while the U.S. thinks all these can be simultaneous and can be complementary to one another, Russia says it has to be in that order. “Can these efforts support one another and be mutually complementary? Absolutely,” said State Department Spokesperson John Kirby, while arguing that the coalition was only to defeat IS while the political process in Syria was a separate track.
Russia points out that the removal of dictators in Iraq and Libya did not lead to stability and prosperity as U.S. had then thought and argues that the future of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad will have to be decided by the people through the emerging political process that both countries have agreed to begin in January 2016, under the U.N. auspices. The quibble now is on what will be Mr. Assad’s role when the process is underway. “That hasn’t been spelled out yet. The exact role of Assad in this transition process is still being discussed,” Mr. Kirby said.
U.S. also disapproves of Russian military tactics in Syria, for causing civilian causalities. “It would come as no surprise,” Col. Warren said, of potential civilian casualties the Russian raid on Raqqa may have caused. “….the Russians are using dumb bombs. Their history has been both reckless and irresponsible,” he said.
These are all issues that could come up when Mr. Hollande meets Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin this week. Asked about what the French President’s visit could mean to the coalition, Mr. Kirby said: “I think this discussion about coalitions and who’s in and who’s out is being just way oversimplified. Here is a 65-member coalition fighting ISIL. That’s the coalition. ..Every member of the coalition has to have the same focus on defeating ISIL, and thus far – you talked about Russia – we haven’t seen that same commitment”.
