John Kerry flies to Moscow to seek help from Russia against ISIS. (File Photo)
US Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Moscow today to again seek deeper Russian cooperation in the war against ISIS in Syria, but he faces strong opposition from defense and intelligence officials who argue that Washington and Moscow have diametrically opposite objectives in the country.
Kerry's trip, which State Department officials say is his second to the Russian capital this year and his third in 12 months, takes place as US Russian relations have worsened with tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, aggressive Russian maneuvers toward US aircraft and vessels, and a disregard for a cessation of hostilities in Syria, where Russia has bombed US backed rebels.
Relations between Moscow and Washington also remain strained over the Ukraine crisis and what the Kremlin considers NATO's unjustified activities along its borders, raising fears that disagreements could escalate into confrontations, either accidental in Syria or the result of miscalculations in the air and naval encounters from the Baltics to the Black Sea.
Yet Kerry, it seems, still hopes for closer collaboration with Russia, to the disbelief of many officials who say Washington has no strategy on how to deal with the challenges Russia poses in Europe and Syria.
"It isn't clear why the secretary of state thinks he can enlist the Russians to support the administration's goals in Syria," said one US intelligence official.
"He's ignoring the fact that the Russians and their Syrian allies have made no distinction between bombing ISIS and killing members of the moderate opposition, including some people that we've trained," the official said, using an acronym for the militant group. "Why would we share intelligence and targeting information with people who've been doing that?" ANGRY SPIES
US intelligence officers are incensed by the administration's continued overtures to Russia, in part because they say the Russians knew that two rebel camps they bombed this week were far from any Islamic State fighters and housed US backed rebels or their families.
The first attack, on Monday, killed at least 123 people and injured scores more, many of them CIA-trained rebels and military or intelligence officers from allied Arab countries, said three US intelligence officials. The second, on Tuesday, killed at least 12 rebel fighters at a nearby base, they said.
The camps, the officials said, are in a no-man's-land on Syria's border with Jordan devoid of any Syrian troops or Islamic State fighters, and the Russians attacked it deliberately, the officials said.
It was not immediately possible to seek comment from officials in Moscow.
Other officials argue it is naive to think that because the Russians say they, too, are seeking a negotiated end to Syria's civil war - which, according to the United Nations, has claimed some 400,000 lives - Moscow's goal is compatible with that of the United States and its Arab and European allies.
"The Russians want a settlement that would keep (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or some replacement acceptable to them in power," said a defense official, who like others who discussed the schism in the administration agreed to do so only on condition of anonymity.
"The president has said that Assad has got to go, and our allies, especially the Saudis, hold that view very strongly. In fact, they keep asking us why we're cozying up to Moscow."
© Thomson Reuters 2016