Al-Monitor, Dec. 4th, 2016 – The House voted for the first time today to explicitly authorize the incoming Donald Trump administration to arm vetted Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.
While the language in the annual defense bill also creates restrictions on the provision of the controversial weapons, it represents a win for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., a fervent advocate of helping the rebels resist President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. The Senate is expected to pass the bill next week.
Until now, the transfer of man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADs, had been implicitly authorized in the absence of an outright ban.
Trump was outspoken about his reluctance to get dragged into the Syrian civil war throughout the presidential campaign. He has since picked hawkish advisers and candidates for Cabinet positions, including retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense.
The rebels “are being slaughtered as we speak. A genocide is taking place. It’s a black mark on American history,” McCain told Al-Monitor when asked about the MANPAD provision. “I think [Trump] is going to listen to the people he appoints as secretary of defense and secretary of state.”
Mattis is well known in military and foreign policy circles for his aggressive determination to take on America’s foes, notably Iran, including in Syria and Iraq. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee as far back as January 2015, however, he opined that the time for supporting moderate rebel fighters against Assad’s forces had “passed.”
US-backed Syrian rebels noticed and applauded the policy change while questioning Trump’s intention to make use of it.
“This move could have [been] a potential game-changer for the opposition a year ago … in response to Russia’s intervention, which as we’ve seen has primarily been one involving the heavy use of air power,” Bassam Barabandi, a political adviser to the Syrian opposition’s High Negotiations Committee, told Al-Monitor via email. “If Trump decides not to end American military support for the rebels, providing MANPADS could help the opposition maintain its positions in Idlib, which I suspect is where Russian air power will be concentrated on after Aleppo falls to the regime.”
The new provision was added in while the House and Senate worked out differences between the bills they passed earlier this year. The original House bill expressly prohibited the transfer of MANPADS to “any entity” in Syria, while the Senate version made no mention of them.
The new provision “would require the secretary of defense and secretary of state to notify the congressional defense committees, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee should a determination be made to provide MANPADs to elements of the appropriately vetted Syrian opposition,” according to the explanatory statement accompanying the compromise bill. “The conferees expect that should such a determination be made, the requirement for the provision of such a capability and the decision to provide it would be thoroughly vetted by and receive broad support from the interagency.”