Why ground troops is not the solution but only a means to an end.

What most advocates of ground troops in Syria conveniently forget to mention is what is to be done áfter Daesh is militarily defeated.

They keep coming up with Petraeus' Surge. And yes, the surge did defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq. But only temporarily. They came back with a vengeance and renamed themselves, in the end, to Islamic State.

The reason they give for it is that Obama retreated the troops. But one should not forget the American people were pretty fed up with the war at that point in 2009 and the Iraqi's preferred to see them go too, prompted by the Iranians. (Not to mention Bush signed the SOF agreement to retreat the troops)

Defeating Daesh militarily is the fairly easy part. Just bring in a lot of troops, Surge style, and you could do it. In that sense the likes of Max Boot and Michael Doran are right. But what they neglect to mention is what is to be done afterwards.

Sunni's in Iraq will not trust the Baghdad government in the foreseeable future and the Shiite dominated government is not one for power sharing. Not with the Kurds and certainly not with the Sunni's who have suppressed them in the Saddam years.

In Syria there is not even a beginning of a solution. Even if the Alawite regime, with or without Assad, could come to some sort of agreement with the rebels, the rebels themselves are very fragmented. And even on the regime side groups like the Druze are increasingly disgruntled. Imposing democracy on a heavily armed and very divided country is not very likely going to result in a stable government.

And in the current fast media culture Western countries are not for staying in a situation for the long haul. And even if we do, like the 14 years we have been in Afghanistan, the results are less than convincing.

And then there is the effect Western troops have when they are deployed in the region. They work as a jihadi magnet. Al Qaeda was founded by Bin Laden as an reaction to US deployment in Saudi-Arabia in 1990/91.

What you would need is a local solution with local Sunni forces so the population would have a decent alternative to Daesh or other jihadist. The problem is which Sunni power would be able or willing? Turkey is more interested in fighting Kurds, The Saudi's are more interested in fighting Iran. Not to mention the fact that any regional power moving in will immediately face opposition from the others.

What is needed is a sort of agreement between the regional powers Saudi-Arabia, Turkey and Iran. But that's a long way off but the very first small step has been made in Vienna: Iran and Saudi's sitting at one table and talking.

Regarding IS the only thing you can do now is contain them for the time being and that is going better than expected. One could argue that IS spreading out to Europe is a sign of that. Last year they weren't interested in exporting terrorism. They were expanding their caliphate. Now that expansion has been checked they fall back on old Al-Qaeda tactics: international terrorism. Quite a shift in strategy.

There won't be any quick fixes for the current terrorism wave. European terrorism doesn't even come from Syria although Hollande likes to make us believe that. It is home grown. They are EU nationals, born and bred. Radicalized in Europe. But that is a message that is too inconvenient for most.

The power of perception

For a week now the Metrojet crash in the Sinai has been subject to speculation. Was it IS in Sinai with a manpad? (No, too high) Was it technical failure? That was the consensus and when Metrojet themselves discounted that it was disregarded at first but when more signals started coming in about a possible bomb on board it rapidly gained ground. Now even the Russians and Egyptians seem to think it was a bomb. Giving the Egyptian government awkward questions to answer about airport security. 

Not very surprising when you know that worker jobs in Egypt are badly underpaid. Relying in cases, where possible, on bakshish (tipping). So where bakshish does not applies people will get inventive. I remember from personal experience that tourist police would gladly chip parts from archeologic sites for you if you would pay them a small fee when their job was to stop you from doing things like that. Currently stories surface that security staff would let suitcases full of drugs or weapons pass for 10 euro's. It did not surprise me at all. But all this on a side note.

One thing nobody questioned was who was the target. It was clear for everyone that Russia was targeted for getting involved in Syria. Even though Russia hardly bombed IS at all, instead hitting mainly Nusra, FSA and other rebel groups. It had bothered me a bit this week.

Today, on BBC Sunday Politics, Dr Domitilla Sagramoso said exactly that: Russia was probably not the premier target. Egypt was. 
Don't overestimate the operational and organizational qualities of a group like IS. It's not SPECTRE. Most of these affiliates operate completely independent and are only in name a branch of IS. The Sinai group is probably not even very interested in what Putin is up to in Syria. They where just trying to hit Egypt where it hurts: Tourism. Bombing a Russian plane then makes sense in that you are hitting the group that was still going to Egypt in larges numbers after tourism from other countries dropped dramatically after 2011.

Groups with a regional or local agenda like IS in Sinai generally do not act in big geo strategic ways. It reminded me of what I was told when I was in Kandahar in 2008. We got our little security speech about what to do in case of an 'incoming'. Taliban shot old Russian ordnance towards the KAF base from a stack of stones. Not very accurate, a lot of them were duds, but every now and then something would hit. Statistics showed that they aimed at the airfield and at the planes and drones parked there. Not at the base where 15.000 troops where stationed. This is a very tactical approach. Hitting the planes that attack you. If you think a little bit bigger, more in geo strategy terms, you'd better try to hit one of the three 'restaurants' on the base during lunch or dinner time. Trying to kill as much soldiers in one attack as you can. Home fronts don't like it when body bags come home in large numbers. These kind of counter insurgency fights are often lost in the media and public perception. Anyway, it showed to me the Taliban where fairly 'provincial' in their approach.

For that reason I currently doubt whether this attack, if it was one of course, was directed from Raqqa Central with the intend of hitting Russia. Of course it could turn out that that was in fact the case. It could also have been a case of opportunity, a coincidence the bomb ended up in a Russian plane. But it was probably aimed at the Egyptian tourism industry.

In the aftermath it doesn't really matter. Perception is sometimes more relevant than fact. Russia will react like it was aimed at them. The reaction will not be a retreat from Syria. The big question is for who exactly that is bad news.

Putin's dilemma

I said a month ago that what I perceived to be Putin's plan for Syria would inevitably would go wrong.
In warfare things always go wrong at a certain point. It is not a proces you can completely control. The more complex, the less control and I think we can agree that the Syria situation is one in the range of highest complexity.

For a month now I couldn't understand why people were applauding Putin's action and criticizing Obama's inaction. For me the inevitability of failure was so obvious it was only a matter of time before it would show. 

I think we reached this point now.

South of Aleppo the Iranians gained some ground but for the rest the offensive bogged down pretty quickly and was even reversed in some places. Substantial losses in manpower and vehicles.
-I just learned Russian planes killed 16 Hezbollah fighters today in a friendly fire incident.

If the Metrojet crash in Sinai is indeed the work of IS it would be an enormous drawback. It would force Putin to respond. Probably by committing more forces and that would drag Russia further in the quagmire that is Syria.

This dilemma is probably the reason why they are not jumping to conclusions to the cause of the crash. Maybe they will even deny it was an IS bomb.

I get the impression Obama understands very well Syria is something you don't want to get too involved in. And why would the US? What is there to gain? What is the US strategic interest in Syria? It's just about containing IS and, for now, there is no reason to involve western ground troops to achieve that.

Like Jeremy Shapiro from Brookings said last month in a VOX article: 

"The Russian intervention is so incredibly stupid that it took the US by surprise that Putin would actually do it."
and:
"When your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt him."

We'll just have to wait and see how this works out. Inaction is not necessarily always a bad thing.