Airstrike Coordination with Russia on ISIS Targets in Syria is Not Practical Without U.S. & Russian Agreement on What Syrian Leadership Will Look Like After End of War: Without That Common Goal, Efforts to Jointly Fight ISIS Will Fail

Coordinated airstrikes with Russia in Syria against ISIS?  Not likely.  Russia will stab us in the back at the drop of a hat, and I’m not sure if the current U.S. leadership will have the backbone to do anything about it.

The problem will be in defining where ISIS is.  Russia thinks they’re in rebel-controlled areas who are actually rebelling against Syrian President Assad and also fighting ISIS themselves.  The U.S. is actually bombing ISIS in Syria and in Iraq.

In order for the U.S. and Russia to be effective with their airstrikes, they have to have common cause.  And that includes who will be running Syria after this civil war draws to a close, which it eventually will.  The U.S. wants the rebel opposition running the country, while Russia has been bombing them to support the existing Syrian leadership, who is a friend of Russia’s. 

It doesn’t bode well that the first joint airstrike managed to bomb a Syrian army unit, and that the U.S. coalition dropped the bombs.  I think this will happen again since Russia is involved in the targeting.   I also think Russia will refuse to bomb U.S.-suggested targets.

I doubt this alliance will last, unless there’s a shared vision between America and Russia of what post-civil war Syria will look like first.