Author Thomas Friedman has a “famous saying that no one in the history of mankind has ever washed their rental car,” Dempsey told lawmakers. This means that those who make the decision to fight IS have to “own it,” he said. “Ownership is ultimately what measures commitment.”
But the Iraqis and Syrians fighting IS might not always have the same goals as US forces. There are no guarantees, Dempsey acknowledged, that the Free Syrian Army might not use its new training and weapons, courtesy of US taxpayers, to fight Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad instead of IS.
The hope is that the program of recruiting these fighters will help “develop a military chain of command linked to a political structure,” Dempsey said.
This means “a chain of command responsive to some Syrian political structure, not responsive to us. These can’t simply be surrogates and proxies. They have to be tied, linked to some political structure that ultimately could assist in the governing of Syria when finally the Assad regime is either overthrown or, through the negotiation, is changed.”
The key “in what we’re trying to do here,” Dempsey added, “is build a force that can, over time, actually contribute to stability in Syria – not just fight.”
