The Scramble for Northern Syria

UPDATE: I guess it is being discussed. This is Rebecca Shabad reporting for CBS News, "Tim Kaine demands release of memo outlining legal basis for U.S. airstrikes in Syria":

Sen. Tim Kaine is calling on the Trump administration to disclose a memo that he says outlines the legal basis for U.S. airstrikes conducted last year in Syria.

"The fact that there is a lengthy memo with a more detailed legal justification that has not been shared with Congress, or the American public, is unacceptable," the Virginia Democrat wrote in a letter Thursday night to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Kaine said he's concerned that the legal justification in that memo "may now become precedent for additional executive unilateral military action, including this week's U.S. airstrikes in Syria against pro-Assad forces or even an extremely risky 'bloody nose' strike against North Korea."

He also argued in the letter that the administration's justification so far for airstrikes conducted in April 2017 has been "insufficient" and that because there was no immediate threat to the U.S. or personnel abroad, he suggests the president should have sought authorization from Congress to carry out those strikes. The U.S. had launched cruise missiles against a Syrian regime target in retaliation for a chemical attack at the time. In a televised statement, President Trump said he authorized the airstrike because "it is in the vital, national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the use of deadly chemical weapons."   

Kaine has asked for legal justification and further information about the U.S. mission in Syria twice since those airstrikes in April of last year.

The senator and 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee has long advocated for a new authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), updating the version approved by Congress in 2001 that the Bush administration, Obama administration and now Trump administration have relied on to conduct military action against terrorist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

On Wednesday, the U.S. launched airstrikes on Syrian government-backed troops after they attacked Syrian opposition forces.

The April 2017 airstrikes reinvigorated the debate on Capitol Hill over a new AUMF last year, but division among lawmakers about whether to provide a more broad or more narrow authorization has impeded the effort to craft a new measure. 

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Rather than "It’s Hard to Believe, but Syria’s War Is Getting Even Worse," the NYT headline of a story by longtime Syria war scribes Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad, I would say it is very much expected.

Islamic State has been crushed in Syria; its fighters, either spread out in the desert along the border with Iraq, assimilated with various Al Qaeda affiliates still fighting in Idlib and East Ghouta, or part of the Turkish-led Free Syria Army battling the Kurds in Afrin.

Going back to 2014 and the ISIS blitzkrieg, the idea was always to collapse the governments of Iraq and Syria and then have the U.S. intervene to liberate -- and control -- the two nations.

It didn't work out that way because ISIS foreign mercenaries were beaten on the battlefield by the Russian- and Iranian-backed armed forces of Iraq and Syria, as well as a U.S.-led Kurdish force that conquered Raqqa.

Now we have what we have -- a U.S. scramble for northern Syrian. Read Rod Nordland's "On Northern Syria Front Line, U.S. and Turkey Head Into Tense Face-off"and ask yourself, Is there any soft landing for this flight?

Ask yourself another question, Where is the congressional mandate for the U.S. occupation of northern Syria?

There is none. People don't care. It is not even discussed. The U.S. is nominally democratic but in substance a closed society.

GOP Plans To Run the World from Congress + Good News Out of Tikrit

Hillary should thank her lucky stars that her Tuesday press conference, where she defended the use of her personal email account to conduct official USG business while she was Secretary of State, coincided with an open letter to Iran penned by junior Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of  Arkansas, that threatened to abolish any agreement reached by the Obama administration on that country's nuclear program. The Cotton letter, signed by 46 other Republicans in the Senate, created a social and mainstream media firestorm, which effectively bumped the Hillary email imbroglio from the top spot in the cultural consciousness. With Kerry appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, there was plentiful soundbite video of Team Obama vs. GOP presidential aspirants.

The permanent circus of partisan conflict has spread from government funding measures and Obamacare to the conduct of foreign policy. Republicans are feeling their oats. Wading into foreign affairs to undercut ongoing White House diplomacy is the GOP's way of saying, "We're not going to lose Congress in the foreseeable future. We might not win the presidency. But we don't have to. We'll run everything from the House and Senate."

One silver lining here is that Obama's ISIS AUMF request appears to be dead in the water. And the good news out of Iraq is that Islamic State has been all but defeated in Tikrit without the assistance of U.S. air power. Anne Barnard reports this morning in "Iraqi Forces Claim Western Areas of Tikrit From ISIS":

BAGHDAD — Iraqi government forces and allied militias took control of the western neighborhoods of Tikrit on Thursday, military officials said, leaving only one area, including a palace complex once used by Saddam Hussein, in the hands of Islamic State militants. 

Military officials said they were confident of declaring victory within a few days in Tikrit, a central objective in rolling back the militants and the government’s largest operation against the Islamic State since it swept into much of the country’s north and west in June. 

Top Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, visited troops near the front lines on Tuesday night and Wednesday. They called for security forces to facilitate the return of displaced civilians from Tikrit and surrounding areas. 

Bringing civilians back without revenge attacks or continuing conflict will be the next test for Iraq’s government if it holds its gains and completes the operation in Tikrit. The government mustered a 30,000-strong force, the bulk of it fighters from Shiite militias, in an effort to retake the city.

Note the last paragraph. This is the talking point for why the U.S. sat out the Tikrit offensive. The presence of Shiite militia backed by Iran risks the sectarian cohesion of the Iraqi state. Never mind that Islamic State fighters have been slaughtering Christians, Yazidis and Shiites and desecrating antiquities, as well as raping, crucifying and immolating. Let's play up rumors of Shiite atrocities.

And this is what reliable, pro-USG scribe Anne Barnard does farther down in her story:

Iraqi officials said they would investigate reports of atrocities, filmed and posted in recent months on social media, and committed by armed men in uniforms with the insignia of a special forces unit and other regular government forces. 

The images have been circulating on social media, and they were compiled and presented to Iraqi and United States officials by ABC News. The images raised the question of whether Iraqi forces may have run afoul of a measure that requires the United States government to cut off aid to foreign militaries that commit human rights abuses.

One video shows what appears to be a 12-year-old boy being shot to death in the street after being accused of working with the Islamic State. Another shows two civilians being shot after insisting they were not involved with the militant group; fighters then riddle their bodies with bullets. Another apparently shows a civilian being beheaded, and other images show a head propped on the front bumper of a military vehicle that appears to be an American-made Humvee.

Iraqi officials have showed footage to the BBC that they said proved that the Islamic State was using chlorine gas in roadside bombs. The images show orange clouds rising from the bombs as Iraqi ordnance disposal teams detonate them. Chlorine, while not as dangerous as substances like sarin, banned by international treaty, can cause coughing and burning eyes and in close quarters can be fatal.

What is going on is the U.S. is getting pressure from its GCC allies to cut off its support of Iraq. The last paragraph about ISIS using chlorine bombs is illuminating. I'm sure Barnard and/or her editors included it to maintain a semblance of balance.

Soon, if the reconstituted military of Iraq continues its battlefield successes against Islamic State, we shall see the jihadi ratline from Turkey in full flower once again. ISIS is a GCC/Western cat's paw. The target has always been the Shiite Crescent.