Situation Report: New Syrian bombing mission on hold; talk of arming Iraqi Sunni tribes; Iran negotiator to step down; and lots more

By Paul McLeary with Ariel Robinson

Deal or no deal? Earlier this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu claimed Ankara and Washington had agreed in “principle” to provide air support to the Syrian fighters the U.S. is training and equipping to fight the Islamic State. But American officials say they’re not yet ready to go there.

Defense Department officials tell FP that talks about the potential mission are still very much alive, but Cavusoglu jumped the gun and no agreement — in “principle” or otherwise — has yet been reached.

This wouldn’t be the first time a Turkish official has gotten out ahead of Washington on the Syria mission. Earlier this year, an unnamed Turkish government source telegraphed when and where the training would start, well ahead of the Obama administration’s timeline for announcing its finalized plans.

Even if there was an agreement, however, support flights wouldn’t happen for months. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said May 7 that only 90 Syrians were currently being trained by U.S. forces out of over 3,700 who have volunteered, and even those fighters won’t be ready for “months.” Another 400 Syrians have made it through some of the early stages of the vetting process, but it’s unclear when and if they will start training.

Granted, 90 guys sent out to face tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters could use a few drones and F-15s stacked overhead, but it doesn’t look like the air support mission is kicking off soon.

Friends are fun. While the thousands of broadly Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen who are fighting alongside the Iraqi army around Ramadi have been sucking up all the press, there’s a push in Washington to give some new help to the Sunni tribes in Anbar province as well.

On Wednesday, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), sent SecDef Carter a letter calling for arms to be shipped directly to Sunni fighters, and to embed U.S. special operators with Iraqi forces to call in airstrikes.

“I believe any such military support can be provided directly,” Hunter wrote in the letter obtained by FP, following up on a similar request he sent to then-Secretary Chuck Hagel last June. He added that arming and training the Sunnis would have the add-on effect of helping to “counter both the Iranian threat and the presence of [Islamic State] by enabling Sunni tribes to hold their territory.”

Right now, the Iraqi army is training the Sunni fighters, while 3,000 U.S. advisors train the Iraqi army at five sites around the country.

But Baghdad claims that it has already started training and arming several thousand Sunni fighters in Anbar, and U.S. officials have said that a first shipment of small arms is in Kuwait, ready to arm them. The Defense Department also recently said it had earmarked $24 million of the $1.6 billion Iraqi train and equip fund for the Sunni program.

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Islamic State

Activists claim the Islamic State has been pushed out of Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria. Exactly who is responsible is a little less clear. Some groups claim that Kurdish fighters drove the Islamic State out; others say it was Syrian government forces, writes the BBC. Either way, it’s a setback for the group, which is a good thing.

But things remain grim in the region. There are now more internally displaced persons in Iraq than there were during the height of the sectarian violence that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003, when many Iraqis fled to Syria. That obviously isn’t an option these days. The results, writes the New York Times’ Tim Arango, are “worsening sectarian tensions as the Shiite authorities restrict where fleeing Sunnis can seek safety.”

In a possible prelude to what Baghdad may find if and when Iraqi cities are liberated from Islamic State rule, the group’s fighters who fled the Syrian city of Kobani have left behind booby-trapped houses and explosives stuffed inside corpses, reports U.S. News & World Report’s Paul D. Shinkman.

Japan

In the continuing saga over the revamp of Japanese defense deployments, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated this week that Tokyo would not send its forces to take part in international military operations. One notable exception: the Strait of Hormuz. Eighty percent of Japan’s crude oil shipments pass through the waterway, and Abe said he would consider mine-sweeping operations there if necessary, reports the Japan Times.

China

U.S. Navy Adm. Harry Harris assumed command of the U.S. Pacific Command from retiring Adm. Samuel Locklear on Wednesday, and wasted no time in calling China’s island claims in the South China Sea “preposterous.” Defense Secretary Ash Carter was in Hawaii for the transfer ceremony, and clarified the U.S. position during his remarks at the event.

“First, we want the peaceful resolution of all the disputes and an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation by any claimant,” Carter said. He reaffirmed the United States “will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world.” Taking aim at Beijing’s island-building campaign in the region, Carter added (in his best imitation of a  college professor) that “with its actions in the South China Sea, China is out of step with both international norms that underscore the Asia-Pacific’s security architecture and the regional consensus in favor of a non-coercive approach to this and other long-standing disputes.”

Space

SpaceX is cleared for takeoff! After two years and lots of headaches, the U.S. Air Force has finally approved the commercial rocket maker led by controversial futurist Elon Musk to develop booster rockets to launch U.S. government satellites into space, setting the stage for competition in the rocket biz for the first time in nearly a decade. The company has become only the second provider cleared by Washington to launch military and government payloads into orbit.

Russia

Reuters reports that Russia is “massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry, including mobile rocket launchers, tanks, and artillery, at a makeshift base near the border with Ukraine,” writes Maria Tsvetkova. Most of the equipment has had identifying plates and numbers removed, and servicemen have taken insignia off their fatigues. “As such, they match the appearance of some of the forces spotted in eastern Ukraine.”

Revolving Door

Wendy R. Sherman, the chief U.S. negotiator with Iran over its nuclear program, told the New York Times on Wednesday that she planned to leave the administration shortly after the June 30 deadline to halt Tehran’s nuke program. “It’s been two long years” of negotiating, she said. The long, complex negotiations have taken a toll at the State Department, and with her departure, “all the top officials who have negotiated with Iran over those two years will have left the administration, leaving questions about who will coordinate the complex process of carrying out a deal if one is struck by the deadline.”