America’s Task Force Orange Targets Syrian Foreign Fighter Networks

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S. military, the regime of Bashir Al-Assad gave de facto permission to foreign fighter networks operating in Syria to cross into Iraq via a clandestine ratline. There, they would kill and maim American soldiers. Such a move was hardly unprecedented; during the same timeframe, he allowed the Kurdish PKK safe transit through northern Syria as they moved in and out of Turkey, just as long as they did not conduct operations in Syria itself.

Considering the abrupt invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, Assad had his reasons for supporting enemies of the U.S. “Damascus wanted the Bush doctrine to fail, and it hoped that Iraq would be the first and last time the doctrine was applied. Anything it could do to ensure this outcome, short of incurring the direct military wrath of the United States, was considered fair game,” Syria scholar David Lesch writes. “These are the actions of a rational actor, and most regimes would have done the same.” (Lesch, 14)