US allies are abandoning the war against ISIS in Syria. New York Times.

A bombing mission in Yemen. The war there has diverted efforts away from Syria. New York Times/Reuters.

US allies have largely abandoned their air campaigns in Syria as the campaign is set to increase in intensity. New York Times. Though our Arab allies are supposedly still in the fight, it has been a long time since any of them have struck any targets in Syria. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have all shifted focus to the fight in Yemen, where Iranian backed Houthi rebels have drawn airstrikes. The UAE hasn't sent an airstrike since March, Jordan since August and Saudi Arabia since September. The United States non-Arab allies have not been pulling their weight either. Australia and France are focusing most of their efforts in Iraq while Canada has quit the fight entirely. Since the air campaign has begun, the United States has conducted 95% of the airstrikes in the region, not counting Russian or Syrian attacks. The United States is also having trouble fielding carriers to the region, as many of them are down for repairs. The French have deployed one of their carriers to make up for the gap. 

My Comment:

I don't think our air war in Syria is going too well. Our allies have pretty much given up on the war. The Arab states have bigger fish to fry and our non-Arab allies have never been as committed to the war in Syria as they are to the war in Iraq. Indeed, Canada has already given up with their new super-liberal prime minister deciding to pull out of the war. And the UK has never actually joined the fight. That leaves Australia and France. Though I don't want to denigrate their contributions to the war, I don't think what they are doing is going to have much of an impact. Once again, America is going to have to pay most of the costs of this war. 

The fact that our Arab allies have all but given up on the war in Syria is one of those things that should be obvious but I really hadn't noticed until now. Of course they are going to focus more on Yemen. The Houthi rebels are a huge threat to Saudi Arabia. I posted a video this morning about a major raid they just pulled off on a border town, and these things are getting more and more common. Though ISIS is a threat to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, they aren't nearly the threat the Houthis are. As an added bonus, fighting the Houthis hurts Iranian ambitions in the regions, which pretty much guarantees that the Gulf States will focus on them instead of ISIS. This may end up hurting the Arab States in the end, but for now, Yemen is where their priorities lie. 

Turkey too is distracted. Indeed, their entry into the war was never really genuine in the first place. Their main focus has been, and will always be, the Kurds. Though ISIS is a larger threat to Turkey then they realize, the Turks hate their Kurdish population and view them as an existential threat to their country. With the war between the Turks and Kurds heating up, Turkey will not contribute much to the fight against ISIS, other then the use of their airbases. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any strikes that Turkey has conducted against ISIS then the few that they did when they joined the war. They are pretty much a non-factor in the war against ISIS. 

Of course, the Russians are intensifying their own air campaign as well. Unfortunately for us, their main targets are al-Nusra and the rebels and not ISIS. In a sane world, the US and Russia would work together to fight ISIS even if our ultimate goals are different. The enemy of my enemy is my friend of course, but I guess that doesn't work in the real world. If we were to work together they would be our most effective ally. Out of any of the countries joining the war against ISIS, only the United States and perhaps Iran has contributed more. 

Russia's entry into the air war wasn't mentioned much in the article, which seems to be an obvious omission. I think it might be an incredibly important factor. America itself is running into issues with sharing airspace with Russia. I imagine that the Arab States, who lack the command and control that we have, could be worried about some kind of incident happening between their fighters and Russia's aircraft. That could be scaring away our non-Arab allies as well. And they may be taking the Donald Trump approach to foreign policy. Why risk their planes and waste their money if Russia is willing to take up the burden?

I also don't think that our air war is doing all that much anyways. It's been said before that air power can't win a war alone. That's never been more true then in Syria. ISIS has managed to survive and even advance even though they have been subject to a withering air campaign. They even managed to capture Ramadi even though they were being attacked by US air power. Sometimes air power has managed to turn the tide of a battle, like it did in Kobani, but for the most part ISIS is able to conduct offensive operations in spite of airstrikes.