Syrian airstrikes not expected to weaken Bashar Assad's brutal grip on power

Jim Michaels | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption USS Monterey launches Syria missile strikes The guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) fires a Tomahawk land attack missile from the Arabian Sea.

The strikes on Syria’s chemical warfare facilities Saturday will not significantly weaken Bashar Assad’s brutal grip on power, which has been expanding in recent years, or change the U.S. strategy of defeating the Islamic State, U.S. officials and analysts said.

The U.S. strike was not designed to “depose” Assad or draw the U.S. into the Syrian civil war, Dana White, the Pentagon spokeswoman said Saturday. “This operation does not represent a change in U.S. policy,” she said.

U.S. officials said, however, that the operation was effective in sending a message to the Assad regime about the use of chemical weapons and damaged the nation's chemical capabilities. “It was a successful mission,” White said.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said this year’s strike was more damaging than a similar attack the U.S. military conducted last year and will have a lasting impact on the regime’s ability to produce chemical weapons.

“They will lose years of research and development data, specialized equipment and expensive chemical weapons precursors,” Mattis said.

The strike, which was conducted with French and British forces, employed 105 missiles and other weapons at three chemical weapons facilities. Last year’s strike involved 59 missiles.

“This has dealt them a very serious blow,” Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said.

But the chemical weapons capabilities, while effective in terrorizing civilians, were not vital to the regime's recent military successes.

Assad used the chemical weapons in besieged areas in order to get rebel groups to surrender, said Andrew Tabler, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The potential loss of those weapons could lead to higher regime casualties since they will have to use other means to eject rebels, he said, but it won't lead to a regime collapse.

Assad’s regime has been steadily expanding control over the country during the past couple years, relying heavily on Iranian-linked ground forces and Russian aircraft to regain territory from rebels. Assad’s own military has been depleted by seven years of civil war.

U.S. officials say Saturday's attack was designed to avoid collapsing Assad’s regime, which could provide an opportunity for the Islamic State or other radical groups involved in the civil war, or draw responses from Russia or Iran, which are supporting the Assad regime.

“We specifically identified these targets to mitigate the risk of Russian forces being involved,” Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.

The U.S. also warned Russia about the airspace that the U.S. military would be using through a military communications channel it has been utilizing to avoid mishaps.

The Russians did not use their sophisticated air-defense systems during the attack, the Pentagon said.

The Syrian regime, however, fired about 40 surface-to-air missiles at incoming missiles or aircraft, but most seemed to lack effective guidance systems and were not effective, the Pentagon said.

Otherwise the attack did not draw a military response from Russian or Iranian forces operating in Syria, the Pentagon said.

Neither country would have a motive for attempting to retaliate, since their objectives is to support Assad and his regime was not threatened by the strike.

The U.S. military has about 2,000 troops in Syria, mostly in the northeast of the country where they are supporting a local alliance of militias battling the Islamic State. The U.S. is not supporting any of the rebel groups fighting the Assad regime.