US still considering a no fly zone over rebel-held areas of Syria

The U.S. public has been told that bombing raids in Syria were to attack the Islamic State and areas it occupies. It turns out that the US raids also attacked areas held by other radical Islamists such as Al Nusra Front.

The media also began to talk of a new threat the Khorasan who appear to be simply a group within the Al Qeda-linked Al Nusra Front. These attacks incensed rebels of all stripes since they are seen to be helping Assad and also targeted groups that cooperate with and are vital to the campaign against Assad. Even the Assad government which earlier had complained that the attacks violated Syrian sovereignty, the UN charter, and international law now applauded the attacks. While the US does intend to spend about half a billion training moderate rebels to fight against Assad and the Islamic State many rebels feel abandoned by the US. The US seems more interested in tackling the Islamic State than defeating the Assad forces in Syria.
 In a news conference at the Pentagon, General Dempsey, announced that a rebel force of about 12 to 15 thousand fighters would be required to defeat the Islamic State The current plan is to train 5,000 rebels. The training and arms will be provided by the US but will take place in Saudi Arabia. Dempsey said the 5,000 was not intended to be a ceiling. The US may intend to do even more to show that it supports the rebel cause.
 The New York Times had discussed the prospect of enforcing a no-fly zone back in July of 2013: "To establish buffer zones to protect parts of Turkey or Jordan to provide safe havens for Syrian rebels and a base for delivering humanitarian assistance would require imposing a limited no-fly zone and deploying thousands of American ground forces." The idea of a "no fly zone" is again being floated in an article in the New York Times using the same humanitarian theme that was offered up in the earlier suggestions a year ago. This was the same tactic that was used in Libya to degrade Gadaffi's military power and ultimately enabled rebels to overthrow his regime. However, this time a UN resolution is not involved. As Russia and others have maintained, the attacks are a clear violation of the UN charter and international law but that issue is not even worth mentioning let alone discussion in most of the mainstream media.
 The Times article describes the no-fly zone as follows:"The Obama administration has not ruled out establishing a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government…Creating a buffer, or no-fly zone, would require warplanes to disable the Syrian government’s air defense system through airstrikes." This move would bring the US in direct conflict with Syrian jets and no doubt would require the destruction of Syrian air defense systems. This could very well result in direct conflict between the US and the Syrian government a situation that would please the Syrian rebels but might not be welcomed by the US. Russia and Iran could intervene to help Assad.
Of course civilians do die when Syria attacks rebel positions particularly when they use weapons such as barrel bombs. Interestingly though, US bombing also causes civilian deaths and the US has lowered its own standards for collateral damage as it steps up its attacks on the Islamic State in Syria. The Jerusalem Post reports: Already facing reports of high civilian deaths tolls early in its campaign against Islamic State, Caitlin Hayden from the National Security Council publicly lowered the administration’s standards on Tuesday, expecting collateral damage to mount in its fight against Islamic State in urban Syria. The “near certainty” required for counterterrorism strikes elsewhere, Hayden told The Jerusalem Post, only applies “when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.”“That description – outside areas of active hostilities – simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” Hayden said. Indeed, much of the US and allies' bombing has targeted infrastructure such as oil fields and even grain silos.
 Even those that are not wounded or injured in Islamic State controlled territories face more miserable conditions caused not by the Islamic State but by bombing by the US and its allies. There seems little concern to protect Syrians who happen to be in territory taken by the Islamic State. If Obama was interested only in attacking the Islamic State he would have asked permission from Assad to carry out the strikes and gained the cooperation of Russia as well. Assad may find that future plans of the US in Syria include intervention that provides more help for the rebels. Although the US at present is hurting the rebel cause through their attacks on radical groups allied with them, in the future there may be more actions in Syria directed against Assad now that the US has directly acted within Syrian territory. As shown in the appended video, Turkey has now also suggested there be a no fly zone in Syria.